Western Standard - March 14, 2025


What happens when the government controls what you can buy？


Episode Stats

Length

26 minutes

Words per Minute

146.26231

Word Count

3,876

Sentence Count

142

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

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

The Bank of Canada is working on a system that would allow the government to spend your money, but what would it mean for your privacy, security, and autonomy? In this episode, we talk to Ben Cavenen from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms about what a central bank digital currency would mean for us.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
00:00:22.620 of the Western Standard. How would you like it if the government of Canada was able to decide
00:00:28.860 how you spent your money. They already decide how much you get to keep, as anybody now filling out
00:00:35.580 their income tax knows. But what if you went to buy gasoline and found you couldn't, even though
00:00:41.740 you had money in the bank because you'd reached your limit for gas purchases? The Bank of Canada
00:00:48.060 is working on a system that would allow that, and here to talk about what it means for you
00:00:53.200 is Ben Classen from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. Welcome to the show, Ben.
00:00:58.860 Well, thank you for having me, Nigel.
00:01:01.000 You're welcome. Great to see you.
00:01:02.280 Ben, you've just written a big report on this, and we're going to talk about it.
00:01:05.700 But first, a word from our sponsors.
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00:01:42.680 Ben, your report is called Central Bank Digital Currency.
00:01:49.420 What it is and how it could impact your privacy, security, and autonomy.
00:01:55.000 And you clearly want us to be concerned, and frankly, I am.
00:02:00.480 So is central bank digital currency some kind of cryptocurrency?
00:02:07.200 What's wrong with it?
00:02:09.280 Yeah, that's a great question, Nigel.
00:02:11.200 It's a question that a lot of people have.
00:02:12.860 What is the difference between a cryptocurrency or a stable currency versus a central bank digital currency?
00:02:18.320 So the main difference between these two, while central bank digital currencies could operate on a technological level in largely the same way as cryptocurrencies or stable currencies, the main difference is that cryptocurrencies and stable currencies are privately owned and operated and not regulated.
00:02:45.640 whereas a central bank digital currency is regulated by a central bank and so that means
00:02:51.080 that the central bank could have depending on the structure could have access to all your banking
00:02:57.800 information to all your account information but also to any and all of your transactions
00:03:03.080 so if you go and and pick up a burger from mcdonald's or you go and put gas into your car
00:03:09.560 somewhere in the middle of Alberta, the government would know about it.
00:03:15.220 Or if you make a donation to a non-profit organization, for example,
00:03:20.520 or a certain political party, depending on the structure.
00:03:23.520 Or a trucker, maybe.
00:03:24.820 Or a trucker, exactly, for that.
00:03:26.440 Yeah, exactly.
00:03:26.800 Yeah, so, again, it depends on the structure,
00:03:31.820 but the fear and the concern here is that a central bank digital currency
00:03:38.760 is regulated by the federal government, or the central bank, Bank of Canada,
00:03:45.120 and they would be able to see everything and anything and control you in a large way in that way.
00:03:49.880 Okay, well, obviously this is a very concerning development.
00:03:54.740 It's actually been gestating for a few years now, but you have to ask, who wants this?
00:04:02.880 Because I don't, you know, we were just in a pub talking about this,
00:04:07.640 And as you look around the room, you don't see a bunch of people who are thinking, this would be so much easier if I had central bank digital currency.
00:04:14.780 So it's not coming out of the public.
00:04:17.200 Who wants this and why do they want it? 0.77
00:04:20.460 That's a great question.
00:04:21.940 Central bankers, politicians and other people who are for this, they are advertising central bank digital currencies as a way to make people, to entice people as this is something that you,
00:04:34.580 that would really increase your efficiency and monetary transfers
00:04:41.240 or make your life easier in one way or another.
00:04:45.100 So they're citing efficiency where you send someone an e-transfer
00:04:51.380 and that is settled instantaneously,
00:04:53.280 whereas nowadays you sometimes need to wait up to 30 minutes for it to settle
00:04:57.260 or you pay your grocery bill and it's on your credit card
00:05:01.780 but it stays on there for three days before it is finally finalized the transaction.
00:05:06.300 I don't consider that a disadvantage.
00:05:08.760 That's exactly it.
00:05:10.700 Now, so for most people, it is not really a disadvantage
00:05:16.360 because it doesn't really affect us on a day-to-day basis.
00:05:20.460 It could maybe affect us in terms of sending money to other people in other countries
00:05:26.800 where then delays are sometimes up to three days.
00:05:29.980 And so CBDCs are being pitched as a way for instantaneous transfer settlements, but they're already building new technologies like real-time rail that will make instantaneous money transfers possible.
00:05:44.800 So, Ben, whose idea was this and to whose advantage is it?
00:05:52.000 yeah great question um so the average consumer the average canadian taxpayer is obviously not
00:05:59.560 really asking for this we are the current digital money money system that we have works just fine
00:06:06.100 we tap with our phones we tap we tap with our credit cards and we have all the comfort and ease
00:06:11.720 necessary um so there is obviously someone who does want it and for a certain reason right and
00:06:18.800 And so central bankers talk about, yeah, all the conveniences that it would provide, including safety, inclusivity.
00:06:30.040 But take, for example, inclusivity, which they say will help to have more.
00:06:34.980 Those people who do not have a bank account currently, they will be able to transfer money digitally.
00:06:41.620 Whereas now, if you don't have a bank account, then you can only use cash.
00:06:45.360 But the reality is that might apply to Nigeria, where up to 30% of people don't have a bank account.
00:06:50.780 But in Canada, more than 99% of people have a bank account already.
00:06:54.100 So that tells us that there's a certain other agenda behind it.
00:06:57.680 Solving a problem we don't have.
00:06:59.280 Exactly.
00:06:59.880 For the consumer, while they're selling it as something really good for the average Canadian taxpayer,
00:07:05.560 the things that they're selling it on don't really apply to us, including efficiency of monetary...
00:07:12.600 Okay, so then let's go to the nightmare scenario.
00:07:15.360 and this has got to do with control you were an observer i think of the of the convoy back in
00:07:23.440 2022 and you saw that the government had the power to take extreme measures such as freezing
00:07:30.800 bank accounts so this is something they've been able to do for decades by the way it's not like
00:07:35.600 we first discovered this in 2022, but it was the first time we saw it deployed against an
00:07:46.080 identifiable group of people. Now, we have a government at the moment, hopefully it won't
00:07:53.420 last too much longer, but let's say it does, and they have a climate change agenda. And so they
00:07:59.740 want to be able to persuade people to spend their money here and not there. You're spending too much
00:08:07.320 on gasoline, Mr. Klassen. What has this got to do with the government's wish to control how we spend
00:08:16.940 our money? Yeah, that's good. And this is one of the most concerning aspects of CBDC. Do you think
00:08:22.580 this is why they're doing it? It very much could be, because if there's very little to no benefits
00:08:28.720 for the consumer, then there must be some sort of other reason why they're pursuing it. And the
00:08:33.040 concern is that they're pursuing it for reasons that would benefit the government and central
00:08:38.660 bank. Because a CBDC would increase their power and increase their control over the monetary
00:08:45.280 system, over the economy, over individual consumer spending. So if you use a CBDC,
00:08:52.160 depending on the structure but likely they will be able to in some structures they will be able
00:08:59.020 to use they see every single thing that you spend your money on whether you bought gasoline whether
00:09:04.000 you donated to a certain political party or you flew to Jamaica for a vacation they will know
00:09:12.480 your spending habits they will know yeah anything everything about you and so they could use this
00:09:19.480 in a way to punish you so for example if you uh donated to the wrong political party or if you
00:09:25.880 bought too much fuel that contributed to too much co2 in the environment well then next thing you
00:09:32.760 know you have a maybe a bad credit with them and so uh uh yeah they could then restrict certain
00:09:40.740 your spending on certain things but one of the fears that i have with this is it's not that the
00:09:46.220 average Canadian consumer will be uh that their their transactions will be uh monitored and or
00:09:52.940 restricted um my my fear is more that they will use uh they will uh monitor and try the transactions
00:10:01.100 of certain leaders in the Canadian society so for example during the truckers convoy there was only
00:10:06.620 a handful of leaders and so if you uh if you effectively eliminated their possibility from
00:10:13.420 conducting any kind of economic transactions so if cash was no longer available which cbdc's
00:10:20.140 likely will create an incentive to remove cash and so if cash was no longer available and private
00:10:26.560 cryptocurrencies were no longer allowed which governments have already central banks have
00:10:31.780 already said that some of their policy goals that they would like to achieve cash and private
00:10:37.480 cryptocurrencies actually stand in the way because it's a way around for around for actually using
00:10:43.900 the CBDC and so if these other currencies were not allowed and only some CBDCs were allowed
00:10:49.780 then they could effectively stop any leaders from being able to rise up and and organize a huge
00:10:59.540 protest or or uh yeah even if it's online or whatever they they um freeze your bank account
00:11:06.500 allowing you to conduct transactions and then what you have just said is going to have some
00:11:12.260 of our listeners leaning forward in their seats you just floated the possibility that bitcoin
00:11:18.980 and cryptocurrencies could become illegal i think that's what you said am i am i correct
00:11:26.260 Yeah, that's correct. Now, currently, Bank of Canada and most banks, central banks in the Western world, are saying that no, a CBDC will operate in tandem with cash and other currencies. And so I think that that might very well be in the beginning.
00:11:44.220 Okay, so I was going to say, why do you think that Bitcoin is in any danger at all?
00:11:50.300 Well, just for one thing, the United States government wants all the Bitcoin it can get for its strategic reserves.
00:11:58.460 Surely they would be a force to maintain Bitcoin.
00:12:02.940 Yeah, exactly.
00:12:03.760 The Bank of Canada, you know.
00:12:06.200 Well, yeah. So while there are certain central banks and certain politicians that do see the value in cash and do see the value in bitcoins and other private currencies, there are other governments that have already said that cryptocurrencies are a danger to monetary policies or to their monetary sovereignty, as they put it.
00:12:29.100 And so, for example, China is one of the countries that has talked about, oh, like, we don't actually like some of these cryptocurrencies. We want people to use our own monetary system, including the CBDC that they've already implemented in their country.
00:12:43.080 And so if CBDCs allows government to really usurp a whole lot more power and have way more power over the economy, over individual consumer spending, and if that helps them to push through their own agendas, which they, you know, think are great political agendas.
00:13:04.360 um if if other currencies stand in the way then there is an incentive doesn't mean that they will
00:13:10.540 but there then there is an incentive to remove other currencies and so if eventually 95 percent
00:13:17.120 of Canadians use CBDCs well then they might be like okay no one uses cash no one uses
00:13:23.040 cryptocurrencies really everyone is okay with the CBDC so why don't why don't we just make that
00:13:28.840 illegal because criminals use cryptocurrencies to evade taxes and to you know to engage in money
00:13:37.020 laundering or finance terrorism or whatever all and so then they'll be like well we're just
00:13:41.840 removing cash and digital private digital currencies because we want to eliminate crime
00:13:46.860 and so and then the average Canadian might be like well I mean I use CBDCs it seems to be working
00:13:51.460 fine and I think eliminating crime is a great idea so yeah why not and so yeah a few people
00:13:58.000 might still be left. No, like, there's value in cash. But yeah, we need a whole huge portion
00:14:03.680 of Canadians to really see the value in these things so that central banks are not able
00:14:08.640 to remove these.
00:14:09.440 So it's a variation of the old argument that, well, I've got nothing to hide, so let
00:14:13.980 them look. No, they don't have a right to look. And so how long has this been going
00:14:19.900 on? And where is it poised right now? Like, are we going to be getting digital bank currencies
00:14:25.820 next week but how long has it been going on yeah um good question uh so the idea the the technology
00:14:35.340 that central bank is central bank digital currency is most likely going to be based on
00:14:39.740 is called dlt distributed ledger technology and that has been around since the later 1990s
00:14:48.620 with central banks have been i believe exploring central bank digital currencies and in the
00:14:53.900 the beginning of 2010s or into the middle of 2010s. I don't know exactly when the Central
00:15:01.080 Bank of Canada started exploring CBDCs, but in 2020, in the beginning of 2020, they announced
00:15:07.840 that they were already exploring it. So they didn't say how long they had been. And so three
00:15:13.880 years later, or three and a half to four years later, in October, November of 2023, they released
00:15:20.640 a public survey that showed that, oh, surprisingly, 79%, something like that, of Canadians are against
00:15:28.960 central bank digital currencies. They're even against the central bank researching a CBDC,
00:15:34.720 never mind implementing one. And so a year later, in November of last year, 2024, the Central Bank
00:15:43.080 of Canada announced that they're going to put their efforts on pause. But I mean, pause is a
00:15:49.740 ambiguous term what does that even mean like are we doing this because the rest of the world is
00:15:54.420 doing it well when they when they paused it in 2024 they said we're going to pause it but we're
00:16:02.500 going to continue to monitor what's going on around the world and in case the cbdc will ever
00:16:08.140 be needed and so yeah that's that's kind of the argument that oh yeah this seems the direction
00:16:13.060 that everything is going in and and they seem to they they tend to make the argument that oh
00:16:17.820 a CBDC really is inevitable. And we should stay ahead of the game so that we're not left behind
00:16:24.340 and so that we're not left behind and eventually have a huge economic downfall to pay for that or
00:16:30.100 whatever. We need to stay ahead of the ballgame. And yeah. So we are, in fact, operating as part
00:16:37.360 of a world system that is changing. And the challenge, if you happen to work for the Bank
00:16:42.540 of Canada is to bring Canadians along perhaps slowly so that nobody gets scared and kicks the
00:16:51.460 stable to pieces. Is that about the size of it? Yes. Yeah. So banks are saying that, yeah, we need
00:16:57.760 to stay ahead of the ballgame in terms of developing these. But the reality is that there
00:17:04.360 is so much more development that can be done in the current banking system. So for example,
00:17:09.220 uh cbdc is a key thing that they're supposed to address is efficiency instantaneous money
00:17:15.380 transfers peer-to-peer doesn't interact with banks but a new technology that is banks like
00:17:20.540 that by the way they get a cut every time i send a check or an email transfer exactly that's a good
00:17:26.340 question and this is my opinion that big banks they're actually fine with it because they know
00:17:33.320 that, similar to what Professor Richard Warner has talked about, a British professor on economics
00:17:40.900 and finances, he has warned that CBDCs will have a detrimental effect to small banks. And so then
00:17:47.900 that will increase the power of big banks because more people are going to be banking with big
00:17:53.220 banks. And so big banks, I don't think, actually mind that, oh, we are going to get way more new
00:17:57.880 clients. Smaller banks, they're increasingly worried about it. And yeah, and we are already
00:18:04.340 seeing a trend in that direction. I think in the UK, there were 10,000 small banks that had closed
00:18:10.800 within the last 10 to 20 years or something like that, as Richard Warner warns. And CBDC is only
00:18:19.480 going to increase the speed in that direction. So as we're not quite out of time yet, but we're
00:18:25.680 getting close, let's just sort of bring this together. What we have is the Bank of Canada
00:18:32.540 researching a system of electronic currency, which doesn't necessarily involve the private banks,
00:18:41.520 that could be a conduit for the federal government to pay people, and presumably to receive
00:18:48.680 money from people, that they control entirely, and that they are, although they may not actually
00:19:00.140 impose restrictions upon how you spend the money that's in your digital currency account,
00:19:07.400 they could. So if there was an objective that they were trying to meet,
00:19:11.460 if they were combating inflation or if they were in combating deflation the reverse they would
00:19:20.880 perhaps be able to make it hard for you to hold cash encourage you to spend it contrary the other
00:19:26.680 way or if they're trying to meet climate change objectives then under this system they have the
00:19:33.080 power to say well you know we're allowing you this much money to purchase fuel for the month
00:19:38.880 And when you're there, that's it.
00:19:41.580 You can't do any more.
00:19:43.440 They remove the power of choice.
00:19:46.020 This is not necessarily what they're saying the system will do.
00:19:50.620 But as an observer and writer of this excellent report, you are saying there's nothing stopping them to do it.
00:20:00.040 And, of course, we have the example of China and its social credit system, where actually there is a very direct connection between the behavior of the citizen and the rewards offered by the state system.
00:20:14.640 So we're on the road to Beijing.
00:20:18.880 We're on the road to Beijing.
00:20:20.300 Really?
00:20:21.060 Yeah.
00:20:21.300 That is...
00:20:23.300 Okay.
00:20:24.760 This is a very interesting and timely report, Ben.
00:20:30.040 Obviously, the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom is an organization that we here at the Western Standard pay a lot of heed to and a lot of respect to.
00:20:41.160 Where can people read your report?
00:20:44.240 Yeah, so the report is available on our website at jccf.ca.
00:20:48.460 And so if you go under the Educations tab in Reports there, you will find this report highlighted there.
00:20:54.460 Okay, and I'm just going to conclude by quoting from the forward of your, the abstract of your report, in which you say, the increased popularity of cryptocurrencies and other digital payment systems has prompted central banks around the world, including the Bank of Canada, to explore central bank digital currencies.
00:21:19.280 So this is driven by the alternative money.
00:21:23.520 And then you go on and you say these currencies could threaten Canadians' privacy, security, autonomy, financial independence, and their access to economic participation.
00:21:36.260 It could also usher in a cashless economy, thereby removing access to the intangible but important benefits that cash provides.
00:21:49.920 My last question to you is this.
00:21:54.080 My fear is that in the years to come,
00:21:58.360 years that I may not see but the due way,
00:22:00.940 this will somehow be integrated with digital identity,
00:22:04.460 which has already been under preparation in Canada for 25 years,
00:22:08.840 started in BC around about the turn of the century.
00:22:13.160 Most people don't really think much about it,
00:22:15.420 But your BC or your Alberta ID card will link you to the federal system.
00:22:24.180 You can go in and do Service Canada stuff with a provincial card.
00:22:29.720 That's getting fairly close to having a one-size-fits-all identity card.
00:22:34.560 Add in this so that you need one piece of plastic or maybe not even one piece of plastic, but one code on your phone.
00:22:46.900 You hold it up and your whole financial life is there before you and anybody else behind on the other side of the wall who cares to look.
00:22:57.980 Is this the society that we are?
00:23:00.560 I mean, I know sometimes we love to look into the dark glass and see disaster and everything, and it may not be so, but could it be so?
00:23:13.620 Well, it certainly could lead there.
00:23:15.640 I don't think that it would go there very fast, although it could go there quicker than we may think, as evidenced by the trucker's convoy and freezing of bank accounts there.
00:23:25.460 but yeah what digital ids do they they essentially um identify so much of uh information about
00:23:34.140 yourself your health status whether you're vaccinated or where you live or where you like
00:23:39.100 to spend your your vacation time and so on and so now you add uh cbdcs to that now now they have
00:23:47.560 access to all your spending habits your where you invest your money uh the places that you donate to
00:23:53.980 so together they now have a very complete picture of who you are what you support what you think
00:24:00.720 and so on and so once they have that and add to that the power to to determine when where and
00:24:10.200 what you spend your money on and a thing that is called program the programmability of central bank
00:24:15.560 digital currencies so now they are effectively able to determine who you are what you support
00:24:21.000 and then they have the power to then determine what you can spend your money on
00:24:26.340 or freeze your account or even eliminate your money at the push of a button.
00:24:31.120 And so together this will be a very powerful tool
00:24:34.700 and we are already seeing that, as you mentioned,
00:24:37.880 with the social credit system in China where this is already at play.
00:24:41.020 And we assume that the Justice Centre is going to continue to keep an eye on this for us?
00:24:44.740 Oh, we're going to continue to keep fighting for Canadians' rights and freedoms.
00:24:48.380 Ben Klaassen, thank you very much for coming in. Here is the report, Central Bank Digital Currency, what it is and how it could impact your privacy, security, and autonomy. What is that website again?
00:25:02.960 JCCF.ca, go to Educations tab, and then in Reports, that's where you'll find it highlighted.
00:25:09.300 Ben, thank you very much for joining us today. For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.
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