It's World Redhead Day, and the World Economic Forum in Davos is a hotbed of conspiracy theories. Plus, a new party is born in Alberta, and a Canadian government is trying to get rid of the Liberal Party of Canada.
00:08:28.400Let's get on to the news here with Melanie Risden in the newsroom and see what else is going to say.
00:08:34.380Hey, Melanie, are you wearing the same colors today?
00:08:38.340Yes, I have not worn this jersey in a long time.
00:08:41.160So my thoughts are they had better win.
00:08:43.520yes well it's looking a little uh look like a leg maybe a bit of a tight match tonight but
00:08:50.440people are hoping maybe they wake up and can pull it off hey stranger things have happened in play
00:08:54.100off time well yeah for sure i mean it was a tight battle in 04 right i mean we didn't make it all
00:09:00.640the way but uh there were some kind of edgier seats we came back and you know kind of as the
00:09:07.240underdog in many cases so i think uh i think i'm gonna i'm gonna say that we can do it well the
00:09:12.940province will be tuned in for the Battle of Alberta. I see a couple of our commenters in a
00:09:16.700row there, Cheryl and Clannett saying, go Oilers, go. So the province is divided, but I think for
00:09:21.840the most part, it's friendly. We've got enough vitriolic division to feed us all. Some friendly
00:09:26.600sports rivalry is good for all of us, I think. So we'll watch that with interest tonight. So what
00:09:32.820else is making the news today? Well, and in speaking of the Flames, the red lot tickets
00:09:39.160that they are, they're not selling them, but they are sort of making them available for people to
00:09:44.900secure. Red lot tickets sold out were basically distributed this morning in seconds. They go out
00:09:53.100for people to go down to the stampede grounds and sort of rebel outside watching the game on a big
00:09:59.640screen. And so again, the Flames are advising everyone, if you do not have a ticket to the
00:10:05.460red lot do not come down, there will be no exceptions to letting additional people into
00:10:10.360the grounds. So we've got a couple of updates on the website right now with regard to the horrible,
00:10:19.020terrible shooting that transpired in Texas on Tuesday, killing 19 students and two teachers.
00:10:26.120We have a couple of updates today. A little bit more information has come in on a timeline,
00:10:31.740how things played out. And there has been a lot of questions surrounding how long it took officers
00:10:39.840to not only apprehend the shooter, but to actually get into the school. Apparently,
00:10:47.300a lot of witnesses on scene were screaming and yelling for the officers to enter and do what
00:10:54.120they could. So that is part of the ongoing investigation that is happening. It has come
00:10:59.640out as well that the shooter has no known criminal activity no known mental issues so that as well
00:11:08.180is part of the investigation another story we have of uh one of the grade four students that
00:11:14.880did survive uh thankfully found cover under a table and the table had a tablecloth so he and
00:11:21.920four of his friends were were sort of concealed under this area and we have a story on some of
00:11:28.320his recollection and recount of some of the terrifying things that happened in that classroom
00:11:34.800as it was sort of taken over by the gunman so that's on the website now and we do have
00:11:40.560other stories that are coming very quickly here uh our reporter out of ottawa matthew horwood is
00:11:46.400working on a story on pfizer profits uh from 2021 they had over 81 billion in profit first quarter
00:11:54.880profits for 2022 are looking very fruitful for the company. So it sounds as though Pfizer is now
00:12:02.700saying they are going to sell their drugs, the vaccines at cost to countries in need. So he'll
00:12:10.400have that up here shortly. He's also working on a story about how the world is down to one week,
00:12:16.820one week, or sorry, 10 weeks supply of wheat at the moment. That's due to supply chain issues for
00:12:24.640um poor 2021 global harvest as well as the uh the war that is continuing in ukraine
00:12:32.880uh and our uh columnist linda sublodian is out with a story right now on human rights watchdog
00:12:40.240that says children are being spied on in our schools when it comes to some of the educational
00:12:46.480software and platforms that are being approved and used within countries including canada
00:12:52.560Apparently, CBC Kids' website has been accused of harvesting children's internet activity with things such as location data and other personal details that could be used to put children at risk.
00:13:09.200So, Linda, we'll have that story coming up here fairly quickly.
00:13:12.020Our BC reporter, Reid, is working on a story. He's looking into a pile of manure that was dumped in front of BC Premier John Horgan's constituency office yesterday.
00:13:25.040So that's a bit of a stinky pile there.
00:13:28.340He's also looking into and is going to do a bit of a breakdown on the $800 million museum renovation that is happening in BC.
00:13:37.680and Jonathan Yanov found guilty for assaulting a former rebel journalist.
00:13:44.800So he's going to have more details on that.
00:13:47.360And our Edmonton reporter, Rachel Emanuel, she will be hitting a noon presser today.
00:13:52.600And it looks like the legislature is likely going to be wrapping up its agenda
00:19:29.360But I took it in so I could share it with you today.
00:19:31.860Unfortunately, I didn't have much good to share about it.
00:19:34.180But we'll watch the race as it unfolds.
00:19:35.920I've talked to every one of the leadership candidates so far,
00:19:38.400except for Brown, of course, because he doesn't do.
00:19:41.380media. Probably because he doesn't care if he wins or not. His goal is just to make sure somebody
00:19:45.840else loses. And that's not a good goal. All right, I'm going to come to our guest really
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00:21:02.560Alright, as I said earlier, we've got a new political party on the provincial scene, and that is the Buffalo Party of Alberta, and their leader is John Mulberg. As I said, they kind of slipped under the radar. I only found out a couple weeks ago that, holy cow, they've been registered actually for a couple of months now. So a quiet organization, but here they are. They are registered, and that's quite a bar to reach, so it's not to be dismissed. So let's bring John in and talk about what this is about. Hey, John, how are you doing?
00:32:00.380uh where does the party stand i guess on further development of it uh protecting it are you looking
00:32:07.020towards transitions as the federal front is looking to do things such as that so we don't
00:32:11.740have specific policies yet again i don't i don't hold the pen here um ultimately this is a member
00:32:16.780driven party and member driven policy so you know and i go that that's that's a bit of a cop-out so
00:32:22.300what i will say is economic development is important uh economic uh exploitation of our
00:32:27.460resources is important. We believe in full support of the oil and gas industry in Alberta.
00:32:33.980We're not a party that's going to say that we should ignore environmental issues. That's one
00:32:38.200of our 12 founding principles is the environment matters. And it doesn't matter. It does matter
00:32:42.200to Albertans. And so it's not something that we want to ignore. But as I said, most problems get
00:32:47.220better with proper economic development. I work in innovation. I've been in engineering for 20
00:32:52.900years, I work in aerospace and defense. And so I see what technology can do to completely
00:32:57.680transform an industry, in that case, aerospace. And technology will also transform energy.
00:33:04.960And Alberta is becoming a leader in that regard. And so rather than just looking at oil and gas,
00:33:10.020we're a believer in the development of energy products and export to the world.
00:33:15.800Great. Well, I appreciate your coming on and your effort. I know it's a tough road you're
00:33:20.800taken and uh long run we'll see how it develops over time and perhaps we'll talk again down the
00:33:25.940road where just a reminder to everybody then where can people who are interested find more
00:33:29.060information about you and uh where you know whether they want to get involved or send ideas
00:33:33.880yeah buffalopartyab.ca again we're uh we're working towards building local constituency
00:33:39.440associations we're looking for members we have different tiers of membership for
00:33:43.480people who want to participate at different levels and and ultimately again we are a member
00:33:47.920driven party. Your opinions matter. And, you know, we would care to hear from you.
00:33:53.280Great. Well, thanks, John. Good to see you again. And well, good luck going ahead. We'll see how it
00:33:58.340all develops there. Yeah, let's do this again sometime. Thanks, Corey. Great. So that was
00:34:02.400John Mulberg, the new leader of the Alberta Buffalo Party. And that's a new party on the
00:34:06.860scene. As I said, it's a crowded field and they've got their work cut out. But well, that's the
00:34:10.980democratic way. You keep bringing them out. And if they've got some merit, they'll take off. And
00:34:14.940if they don't, they won't. I don't, I won't argue with those things. I mean, I'm somebody who went
00:34:20.540and beat my head on the wall starting a new party and then getting involved with new parties in the
00:34:23.920past too. And they can have influence and eventually sometimes they can morph into the
00:34:27.960party of power or sometimes they can fall apart. We'll see how it develops. But I mean, as I said,
00:34:33.340I was pretty impressed though with them managing to get registered. It can't be understated how
00:34:37.980actually challenging and difficult that is. It's not a minor thing. Anybody who thinks that the
00:34:43.100petitioning, getting 10,000, 14,000 signatures on a petition is easy. It's somebody who's never
00:34:47.620actually petitioned for anything before. It's not like an online petition. You can't just get
00:34:51.960somebody's, you know, clicking on a button and putting a signature and you need a physical
00:34:56.940signature proving who that person is, what constituents they live in. And not everybody
00:35:01.540is willing to sign on those. Even if they're supportive, they're worried about sharing
00:35:04.240information. It's a lot of work. So we'll see if they got the get up and go to get registered.
00:35:10.280well, then they might be going forward and doing some more. We'll see. And we're certainly happy to
00:35:16.740speak to more people out there making initiatives like that. All right, let's go through some news
00:35:22.060items and see what else we got going out there. Yes, it's getting back to a common thing we're
00:35:27.900seeing in committee on the federal front. And that's, actually, I'm just going to clarify one
00:35:34.940of these things. Sorry. So I see a commenter. I like the comments. I like responding to them.
00:35:37.960So I believe in Jesus. I'm suspecting that's an anonymous name, but all the same. So didn't Michelle Rempel start this party? Now she supports Patrick Brown. No, that was the Buffalo Project. And there's where there's areas of confusion, though. And it's worth mentioning, which was a federal initiative that Michelle Rempel was a part of.
00:35:53.600Michelle's been strange lately. I'm not sure what she's up to, but she has hitched her wagon0.54
00:35:59.000to Patrick Brown. And she did put out a ridiculous screen snap of a stupid email set up again,0.99
00:36:05.560back to the Patrick Brown campaign policy of trying to smear Polyev as a racist. But either
00:36:10.980way, that's not related to the Buffalo Party, to my knowledge whatsoever. That's a separate
00:36:14.380initiative. Uh, we got a lot of, uh, Buffalo things out there. Um, and then, uh, yes. So,
00:36:22.540uh, yeah, there's Sanico also saying, yeah, Rampol's attached to the Buffalo project. So
00:36:26.400different altogether. So yeah, we're, we're still getting the fallout. Like I said, in committee,
00:36:30.300you know, committee is where the federal government sneaks a lot of things through.
00:36:33.180Uh, when I get my next guest and we start talking about, uh, their efforts on internet control and
00:36:38.000things such as that with Michael Geist, that's part of it. He's been talking to committees
00:36:41.320because that's where these bills are going through.
00:36:43.240The media doesn't watch them closely enough sometimes,
00:40:16.220And, you know, they're holding this event on Parliament Hill, a place where so many journalists have been exposed to trauma and harassment,
00:40:25.240said uh this associate director alan thompson of carlton university and uh let's see thompson is
00:40:31.500also a toronto star reporter you know the red star and uh he joined it with cbc staff in publishing
00:40:37.120this garbage uh that they put out and i mean this is even before the pandemic media workers were
00:40:42.160already encountering a rise in harassment confrontation and online abuse guess what guys
00:40:47.060there's mean people on the internet i hate to break that to you i hate to throw that out to
00:40:52.480I know, I know. I'm shattering some illusions. I'm being cruel. I might even hurt your feelings.
00:40:57.780I'm sorry. Actually, I'm not. I'm with any media. Mainstream media, legacy media, alternative media.
00:41:06.740You should see some of the stuff I get in my inbox. You should see some of the tweets I get sent my way.
00:41:11.000I choose that. I choose to immerse myself in that public social media world and to get on here.
00:41:16.800And you know what I can do? If it's really beyond the pale, and I do a lot, some people argue with it, fine.
00:41:21.100they don't have to agree with me, but I block. I block like hell. Every social media platform
00:41:26.100gives you the ability to block somebody. This person's being abusive on Twitter,
00:41:31.280I block them. I don't care. I don't have time for them. I don't debate with them. If I want
00:41:35.460to debate with them, I'll debate with them then. But I'm not going to have my feelings hurt and
00:41:38.640whine and piss and moan. Because that's what this report's about on the mental health being
00:41:42.600and well-being and trauma among Canadian media workers. That's the terms these guys are using.
00:41:47.140What kind of pussies have we got in our mainstream media?
00:43:52.240It's just like with the Liberal Commissions too,
00:43:53.780constantly talking about ways to increase or tax your primary residence.
00:44:02.980You see, this is the way the government does things.
00:44:04.440They constantly commission these kinds of studies and reports and studies and reports, and then they'll deny they want to do it, but they're building the ground, the foundation for what they want to do, and that's why they give the money to this crap.
00:44:16.740But they're moving along with it, all those poor darlings.
00:44:19.020You know, Dave Siglin's a CBC radio host and co-leader of the research products, and hurtful media criticism is growing.
00:44:24.800There's a rise of social media trolling, political polarization, anger directed at the so-called fake news.
00:44:30.340Well, you guys actually, CBC, you retracted a whole lot of stuff.
00:56:01.500First, specifically on the question, is there a role for government to support the production of content in Canada, including, of course, Canadian content?
00:56:10.360I think my view is that the answer is yes, there is.
00:56:13.100We already certainly provide significant support through tax credits.
00:56:17.840And we know that without some of that tax credit system, both federally and provincially, that a lot of that economic activity will simply walk away and go elsewhere.
00:58:17.620I mean, certainly, you know, Peter and I did appear together, and we raised concerns.
00:58:22.540Notably, I think on that same day, we had some coming from the Digital First creative community.
00:58:28.860Morgan Forche, for example, who runs a company called Skyship Entertainment, which is Canada's largest YouTube streamer.
00:58:36.700Frankly, its numbers would be mind-boggling even to some of the very well-established Canadian services.
00:58:42.880We're talking about tens of millions of subscribers, billions of streams, 97% of which occur outside the country.
00:58:50.940All of their intellectual property and their creativity created here in Canada, yet you don't hear about them.
00:58:56.840They don't actively use some of the kind of government granting systems that we've seen.
00:59:01.420And they're concerned about the bill because they're concerned that when the government oversteps into this area, because they are not one, they're not a Netflix and they're not using those kinds of platforms, they're worried it could have a real negative impact for them.
00:59:15.620Well, there's a lot of unique ventures and companies and things that didn't exist 20 years ago that exist today.
00:59:20.180And it's hard to keep legislation to keep up with what's going to develop.
00:59:26.040So to kind of pivot to C18 then, that's a little different, and that's getting more towards independent media a lot, and the big providers, Facebook, Google, and others, it's basically looking for a setup, I kind of see it as putting the screws to them a little, but paying for access and placement. Can you kind of explain how that's working?
00:59:47.040Yeah, no. So the way it's working or the way it could end up working is that, you know, you've had some of the very large Canadian media organizations, Post Media and Torstar, I suppose most notably, arguing that they would like to see companies like Google and Facebook pay them for sort of the references to their news articles that exist on their sites.
01:00:09.260And I think that for some people, if what we were talking about was some of these platforms taking full copies of their articles and posting them on those sites and then perhaps selling ads against it, they would say, you know what, that's something that we think you ought to be compensating for.
01:00:23.920But that's not what we're talking about, in part because those platforms don't copy full text of these articles. They typically just post links to the underlying services themselves. And so it seems to me that that's, as I say, that's not what we're not even talking about full copying.
01:00:39.740And the legislation is pretty clear that it goes well beyond the notion of compensation for reproduction of works.
01:00:48.040It talks about facilitating access to the news or any portion thereof.
01:00:54.220And so when you're talking about facilitating access to news, you're talking about linking to the news.
01:00:59.200You're talking about creating an index that might include various news services.
01:01:03.740So, for example, if you include if if someone ran a search on Google for tell me Western based news organizations and your news organization and a bunch of others showed up, the mere fact that they were on that list under this legislation would be viewed as facilitating access to the news and would be viewed as something that Google ought to be compensating the underlying companies for, which I must admit I find baffling because they're actually driving traffic.
01:01:33.740to these underlying sites and yet the position is that somehow it's google that benefits let's say
01:01:39.340from the inclusion of this information in their index and thus they ought to be compensating
01:01:45.420the underlying news organizations that are linked to yeah i find it kind of bizarre i mean for for
01:01:51.500our organization we are very dependent on that if we are listed in google and facebook and some of
01:01:56.220those we can't get our message to the broader audience very easily at all i mean we have
01:01:59.820have newsletters, we do everything we can, if anything, and I'm not proposing that, we should
01:02:05.640almost be paying them a little bit for how much they promote us outside of that. When we bring
01:02:09.100traffic in, we bring subscribers, we make our money on the advertising after that. So it's just
01:02:14.140sort of absurd. But the thing is, this will stack things if they got what they wanted, sort of more
01:02:19.040heavily for those, the larger, the heavyweights out there, as you said, Taurus, Star, Post Media,
01:02:24.160and the little independent outlets like ourselves could end up finding ourselves on the outside
01:02:28.180looking in and that's very troubling for us and I think for people in general. I think the
01:02:33.240independents find themselves in a very very difficult position you know the government
01:02:37.300has tried to make the case that no this is this is not not going to hurt the independents that
01:02:43.000they will have the opportunity to benefit from the negotiations in the same way that the large
01:02:47.960players would but left unsaid is that there are and I think you've hinted at it here there are
01:02:52.960many independents that recognize that if anything, the value proposition is one where they're the
01:02:58.540beneficiaries of this. And those free referrals are worth quite a bit. And we know that, of course,
01:03:04.580because media organizations pay to advertise on these services all the time to drive links. They
01:03:10.020literally are paying for those links in many circumstances. And suddenly now they're saying,
01:03:14.760no, no, you should be paying us for those links. I think the problem for many independents is that
01:03:19.780they may find themselves in a position where they feel they have no choice but to enter into this
01:03:24.740process. That if your competitors are doing it, then suddenly you say, well, how can I compete
01:03:29.860if I've created a digital only news service in a local community and I've got this literally the
01:03:36.340CBC is my primary competitor already potentially supported by tax dollars suddenly now gaining
01:03:43.080additional support by participating in a process where they're getting money from Google and
01:03:47.740Facebook, can I really afford to stay on the sidelines and, you know, and put myself in a
01:03:53.980less competitive position over time? It puts us at a disadvantage. Wasn't there a battle
01:03:58.960similar to this in Australia in the past? It was sort of Facebook versus Australia. And how did
01:04:04.260that all finish out? Actually, I think somebody backed off somewhere. It was. And so, and so the
01:04:09.460government will tell you that they're using the Australian example as their model. And the
01:04:13.900Australian approach did involve Facebook for a brief period of time saying they were simply going
01:04:18.140to remove news links from their service altogether. That the reality for them is that
01:04:25.400news on their platform just is a relatively trivial part of the overall content world on
01:04:32.340a Facebook platform. And so if they're facing a world in which they're required to pay for that
01:04:38.100compensation for links, you know, I think that these companies look at this a little bit as an
01:04:43.500existential threat because they say, listen, what makes news so special that if I have to pay for
01:04:49.100links for news, why don't I have to pay for links for a myriad of other content that people happen
01:04:54.100to post on my site? They might come and say, hey, I want to get paid for that too. And so they did
01:04:59.220take a strong position and say that they weren't going to include news. They backed off under a
01:05:05.880clearly enormous political pressure. But we need to understand, of course, that the Australian
01:05:10.380market is pretty different than the Canadian market, not the least of which is that in some
01:05:14.280ways it was largely a battle by Rupert Murdoch on the one side and Facebook, Google, Google on the
01:05:20.580other. And, you know, as a home cooking, so to speak, for Murdoch as an Australian-based media
01:05:26.140organization, no surprise what the outcome was. We don't have quite the same kind of media
01:05:31.180environment in Canada, though. Yeah, so I guess kind of in wrapping up, it looks like these bills,
01:05:36.400though, are sort of getting rammed through. You wrote recently the government moved to end debate
01:05:40.240and kind of ramrodding, ramrodded through the next step in the legislative process. Is there
01:05:45.640much chance, do you think, of having these bills amended or perhaps scrapped, or does it look like
01:05:50.100they're pretty much a done deal? That's a great question. You know, obviously, they've got the
01:05:54.780government right now has the votes, minority government, but has support from the NDP. And
01:05:59.460frankly, on this issue, these issues has the support from the bloc as well. So scrapping
01:06:05.060the bills does not seem like a likely outcome. Is there the prospect for change? In the context
01:06:11.000of C-11, I think we're about to find out, given that the hearings will continue next week and
01:06:16.840very soon afterwards, we'll see what amendments are proposed. And so it is possible that the
01:06:22.380government may be open to some change. On C-18, on the news bill, it's hard to know in part because
01:06:28.820the government is trying to move this very expeditiously with really no debate at all.
01:06:33.320I mean, it's frankly, I think, remarkable to see the government move ahead with this,
01:06:39.960with the minister responsible, the Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, has quite literally
01:06:44.620not given a speech on this bill in the House yet. He's never even responded to a question about the
01:06:50.000bill in the House. And yet the government's already moved to end debate on the bill starting
01:06:55.360next week. That's quite problematic. I guess all we can do is just keep watching and try to point
01:07:00.440things out. And I hope perhaps in the Senate, they'll get some more scrutiny. And, you know,
01:07:04.900sometimes we do get amendments and some good changes in there. So I appreciate your coming
01:07:09.120on to talk to us about that today and the work you're doing, you know, and bringing attention
01:07:12.680to this. As I said, kind of some of the viewers, it can be considered somewhat dry content to some,
01:07:16.660but it's very important. And I appreciate your work on it. So where can people find more
01:07:22.180information on what you're doing and to keep track of these sorts of issues.