Nuanced. - 252. Robert Fife: Why Great Journalists Must Cause Trouble

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Globe and Mail journalist Robert Fife joins to discuss media bias, Pierre Poilievre, Mark Carney, political journalism, CBC anonymity, foreign interference, media subsidies, residential-school reporting, and nearly 50 years of holding Canada’s most powerful people accountable with host Aaron Pete.Send us Fan MailSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

You've spent nearly 50 years, as you just described, telling Canadians things that powerful people often did not want them to know. Where did that instinct come from, from you? The people who are in power, whether they were corporations or politicians, need to be held accountable to the public. No democracy can survive without a free press. And a free press is going to cause trouble. That's what we do. You may have seen that story about the CBC where they had reported some of the liberal caucus members being frustrated with the direction. Mark Carney and his cabinet were moving in regards to fossil fuels and looking at a new pipeline. The CBC allowed them to stay anonymous.

What was your reaction to that? If they don't have the balls to put their names out publicly, then I wouldn't have written a story. Or I would have, what I would have written it. I would have gotten it all right. I would have gotten a whole of the letter somehow, and I would have said who the MPs were. I mean, what cowards they are. I've looked at the coverage of Pierre Polyev,

and I find that he gets a lot more scrutiny than I feel like I see on the prime minister currently. You may be right in the sense that there is an unfair bias towards against the conservatives in Ottawa. I think that's probably true, and it's always been the case, generally speaking. How would you like Canadians to remember the work that you've done? Robert Fife, thank you so much for joining us. I am so honored to be able to speak with you today. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted with your long, impactful career?

Okay, my name is, my byline is Robert Fike, but everybody calls me Bob. I've been covering national politics for 48 years. I started a news radio, which is now defunct. I went on to United Press. which is now defunct. Then Canadian press and I was the bureau chief at the Sun Media and the bureau then went on to be the bureau chief of National Post and its affiliate newspapers and then spent a decade as bureau chief at CTV News and the last 10 years as a bureau chief of gold mail and I've just stepped down as a bureau chief, although I'm on a retainer in September where I hope to

spend time mentoring younger goal and male journalist and writing hopefully the odd scoop. Fantastic. You've spent nearly 50 years, as you just described, telling Canadians things that powerful people often did not want them to know. Where did that instinct come from from you? Well, I come, I was raised in a small northern Ontario town called Chaplow. It's between, it's near Timmons, but it's on the main line of the CPR between Sudbury and Thunder Bay. It's a small town. When I was growing up, it was about 3,000. It's now less than that.

All these communities are shrinking in size. And I just, my view is always being that the people in these small communities like most Canadians work very hard. They pay their taxes and they're very honest people. And I find it in my sense, my journalism is all about speaking for people who have no power, but who are honest and hardworking. And so I've always tried to focus my journalism on accountability journalism. The people who are in power, whether there are corporations or politicians, need to be held accountable to the public. And so that's the way I've always operated. I think that that is an important role in journalism.

Powerful people have lots of voices to support them. It's the ordinary people who don't. And so that's been really fundamental to my journalism. And I won't, and I've tried to instill that into generations of younger journalists who I've mentored. You've said that growing up in that small town helped develop your moral compass. What experiences there shaped that for you? What gave you that kind of mindset? Well, I'll give you two good examples.

There were three reservations in Chaplow. And two of the reservations, the people were doing not too badly. But the major reservation, there was a lot of racism in that town. And I went to school with kids from the main reserve who never ended up finishing public school. And their communities were devastated by alcoholism, unemployment. And I'll give you an example of how the Indian Affairs Department, Canadian government, wrecked these people's lives. They lived for the longest period of time, probably forever, on Big Missonabie Lake. It was a big, big lake north of our Shapo. And this is

where they were able to hunt and fish and sustain themselves because there was a lot of wildlife and lots of beaver and otter and mink and all the sort of things that they could sustain their livelihoods. And Indian Affairs, I think back in 1948, moved that community about 40 miles from Shaplow into a reservation with a very small lake. So they couldn't sustain themselves. And they didn't offer them any employment. And the kids had to take a bus ride on a dirt road 40 miles there and back every day. Well, that community, which was thriving at one time, was just devastated by over the years by the fact that they had no livelihood. Their way of life had been ruined.

And the kids, their parents ended up, you know, becoming not-unolics. And the whole community was ruined. And many of these young kids that I went to school with, and I knew fairly well, also had their lives destroyed. And on top of that, the community itself, there was a lot of racism. particularly among the police towards that particular community. I think they're a lot better now. They moved closer into town about seven miles from the town. And over the last decade or so, they now own their own lumber trucks.

I mean, the community is, I think, thriving now. Although I think the opioid crisis is hitting a lot of communities, indigenous communities, but also everywhere, as you know. So that was something that always struck me as something that was completely unfair. And the other factor is that there was a large also French-Canadian population who were working in the lumber mills. And the people who owned the lumber mills lived, It looks like it was a Mark, Carl Marks, right over Carl Marks, or Frederick Engels' book.

They lived above on a hill above the, basically the shacks that the people worked in in the lumber mills. They weren't really paid that very much, but the rich people who owned the lumber mills lived way above them in these big, big and beautiful homes. I wouldn't say their mansions, but for chapel they were mansions. You know, they owned airplanes. They had the best trucks, the best cars, and all that sort of stuff. So that, to me, the injustice of, there was a, Chappell was a microcosm of the largest society. And those two, those two, the treatment of indigenous people, the treatment of the French, Canadian workers, there was something that really bothered me a lot as a kid. I was like watching that. And I think that's had an impact in my journalism.

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, it's, I guess it's hard to describe, but it's something that's embedded in your soul, if you know what I mean? Absolutely. No, thank you for sharing that. You didn't attend journalism school and have described journalism as a trade learned through experience. What did working reporters teach you that you don't think could have been learned in a school? Well, first of all, I don't have any animosity towards schools. In fact, the younger journalists that are coming out of schools, I'm pretty impressed with. So that's not the issue. But I also don't think you need to go to journalism school to be a good reporter. You know, you can have a, you can be in economics or arts or

engineering or be a plumber, frankly. You just have to, you learn the writing on the job, as you would as a skill trade. And it's just your ability to be able to listen and to see stories that need to be told. And you don't have to be trained to do that. Everybody's doing that every day of their lives, looking around and saying, you know, that's a story that needs to be told. So I'm not against journalism schools, but I'm also a strong believer. And people can, anybody can be a really good journalist if they're curious, they listen, and they ask questions. Gerald McNeil taught you not to become a strenographer for government. And he also encouraged you to study gossip columns to understand the personal relationships behind political

power. How much of covering Ottawa is understanding policy and how much of it from your perspective is understanding the people and the relationships behind it? Well, just give you a little example, but Jerry McNeil is long gone. He

was a really great mentor to me because he, you know, he said, don't pay attention to the lies and bullshit. You've got to cut through that. And he was absolutely right. Jerry took the government to court over Last Tangle and Paris on censorship,

and he changed the censorship laws in this country. He wrote a book about the prison system called Cruel and Unusual Punishment, the way our prison system had treated prisoners. And so he had a huge influence on me in looking at how you can help people who had no voice. and not to be, not to think you're important because you're invited to a cocktail party with the Athens on the Rito crowd. You know, I'll give you a good example. I've never had a journalist in my house or sorry, of course I have lots of journalists.

I never had a politician in my house and never will because I don't want them to think I'm going to be their friends. I'm friendly with a lot of them, but I don't want them to come to my house and then I find out they've done something wrong and I write about it and they say oh please don't write about it because we're friends you've invited me your house don't do this so you really have to draw the line and in Ottawa you have to understand that these people are not your friends you may like each other and get along very well but they're using you too and so you you just have to understand that's the world you're you're living in um so and jerry

what Jerry would say is read gossip columns because they tell you who the powerful people are, like I'm talking about like the social, like who's hanging out at which cocktail party or going to which event. Because it shows you the intermingling of the powerful and the connections that are going on. So then you realize, oh, well, they just got a contract. They got a contract and I see their buddies. They're going to games and they're, you know, they've been invited. to this social or that social. And you start to see, when you start to see the connections,

you can start to be a better reporter because if you know that people are getting contracts or getting favors because of their connections, whereas, you know, somebody else may be bidding on a contract, but they don't have that relationship, but their bid may actually be better, but they're losing it because they're not friends with the cabinet minister. And that's not right. And that's the kind of stuff you have to lower.

for if you're a reporter to say, okay, why is this happening? Well, this is happening because they're friends. A number of years ago, I did a story on during the Kretchen period. The Irving family, as you know, are billionaires. They basically own New Brunswick along with the McCain family. They have a fishing camp on the Merrim machine, which is like it's like a resort. And federal cabinet ministers, including the industry minister, which was dealing with the Irvings all the time, and the defense minister, of course, they build ships. All of these people were going to the Irving Fish Camp, free. Like, this is probably, it's something a fortune to go there. And they were going there, and they were all keeping this secret.

And I found out about it. I reported it. The Irvings went crazy. The government embarrassed all the senior ministers who were going, but they stopped. it. But, you know, look at what the Irvings were getting out of that. They were having contact with powerful ministers who had the potential to direct hundreds of millions of dollars or perhaps billions of dollars to the Irving family. That is the kind of story. You need that connection. That's the kind of connection you have to look at if you're going to do a really good

accountability, journalism. On that note, you may have seen that story about the CBC where they had reported some of the liberal caucus members being frustrated with the direction Mark Carney and his cabinet were moving in regards to fossil fuels and looking at a new pipeline and they wanted to come out, but the CBC allowed them to stay anonymous and not put their names forward. What was your reaction to that? I just shook my head. I mean, I just that's not right. Why would you allow them, if they've signed a letter, why would you allow them the anonymity? If they don't have the balls to put their names out publicly, then I wouldn't have

written the story. Or I would have, what I would have written it. I would have written it already. I would have gotten a whole of the letter somehow, and I would have said who the MPs were. I mean, what cowards they are. Total cowards. They don't like what Carney's just. You know, they don't like what Carney is doing, and they write a letter, and then they get the CBC to play along with it, but they don't have the courage to put their names to it. I just think that's wrong. I would not have agreed to do that. And I know for sure, David Wombezzar, the editor-in-chief of the Old Mail, would not have published that article without us naming who these people were. I mean, there are elected officials, for heaven's sakes.

Yeah. And it speaks to that relationship of like they like those politicians are absolutely using you and going to keep that in mind in the future. Yeah, look, I mean, Ottawa is a place where you're going to be used. And you have to, that's why you have to be, you have to have a moral compass. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror every day and say, am I okay with myself? Because if you, if you're not happy with yourself, you got to ask why. if you're allowing yourself to be used by politicians for their benefit and not the benefit of the Canadians who you're really there to serve, then you have, maybe you're in the wrong business. But, you know, there are a lot of journalists in Ottawa, unfortunately, who I think it's important to be for their own self-esteem or whatever, their ego to be able to go, to have, you know, a cabinester call them or to be invited to

you know, a dinner at somebody's home. And then you get co-opted. And getting co-opted is not journalism. No chance we could get a list of those individuals by chance. I don't want to get into I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

I'm not going to get into personalities. Of course. They know who they are. Michael Morris, who you knew in Chaplow, wrote that you were constantly peppering him with questions as a student. He also recalled that years later, you used your UPI connections to get him assigned to cover a 1985 field burn near Chaplow connected to nuclear winter research. What did it mean to you to connect your hometown to an international Cold War story?

Well, Michael Morris was my high school teacher, and he was a journalist, actually. He worked in Saskatchewan for a long time and then came back to Shaplow and taught school. So I really, he was a good writer and he told me all, he was actually also the coach of our hockey team and ended up being the mayor of Shafto. But he was very, he told me all kinds of great journalism stories. And he was also,

a journalist who, you know, believe that, you know, we had to hold people to account. That's the important role of journalism. So, yeah, I mean, I think it felt great that I was able to do that for him. He had big influence on me in terms of talking about politics and talking about history. And, you know, when you're in a small town, I don't know what town you came from, but if you're in a small town, especially as very isolated, you don't know. what the world is like. And the only way you're going to be able to learn what the world is like is talking to other people or reading books and histories and novels and whatnot so that you can get a

sense of what the world is like outside your own hometown. Absolutely. Yes, I come from Chilliwack. My First Nation community is open, Hope, British Columbia. So I, and I love corner gas and how you kind of connect those small communities to the bigger world. And it is a microcosm. that almost works a little bit better so you can kind of see the challenges that urban cities can face. You have said that the job of a journalist is to cause trouble, while also warning that reporters shouldn't make things personal. I'm wondering from your perspective, what is the line between adversarial accountability journalism and performative, antagonistic kind of gotcha type journalism?

Well, I'll give you a couple examples. Some of the stories that I'm particularly, Look, I've had some major stories on S&C, Laveland, for example, and the Chinese foreign interference and cash for access under the liberals. But some of the stories that are examples of accountability journalism. When Afghanistan fell and the Taliban swept into cattle, there were a lot of, we had an obligation to Afghan translators and fixtures who helped Canadian military. And we were, there was a lot of, the immigration department was really screwing up and trying to help help these people. There was also another group. The guards at

the Canadian embassy were not, the Canadian government wasn't going to help them. Now they, they risked their lives outside that embassy guarding it. I mean, the Taliban come, you know, there were a number of instances where they, they were threatened. And their lives were threatened. And so I and my colleague Steve Chase did a lot of work on bringing these people's troubles to life so that we get them out. And the government finally did. But it was a tough slog of really constantly writing about it and having, fortunately the gold was also put those stories on the front. So it shamed the immigration department into helping to get these people out of Afghanistan. And some of them, it was too late for them to get out, but they were able to get,

bribe people to get into Pakistan, and then the Canadian government did bring them back. But it was only because of that kind of journalism. Another example was there was a number of years ago, there was what we were called a no-flying list kids. these were Muslim Canadian kids who had the similar name as somebody on a or the same name as somebody on a no-fly list. So the families were showing up at airports with their two-year-old kid or eight-year-old kids. And they may have had the same Muhammad, whatever name. And they weren't, they wouldn't let them on planes. And they're saying, look, this kid's not a terrorist.

He's two years old. What's going on here? And the government wouldn't change the, all it really needed was changes to the computer system so that these kids could get on these flights. And the government wouldn't do it because it's going to cost too much money. And we kept writing about it. And the families then began a lobbying effort with MPs. And the MPs put pressure on the government. And I'm just going to shut this off.

Sorry about that. That's one of my calls. Anyway, so it ended up the government did spend $7,8 million to fix that. But if we didn't do that, these kids would still not be able to get on planes. That's the kind of power of accountability journalism. Now, I can roll and write a nice story about how some, you know, cabinet minister did something good for somebody. Well, that's wonderful.

But there's a lot more harm being done. if we, to people, and we can fix that. And that's what I want my journalism and other people's journalism to do, is to shine the light in dark corners and hopefully get change as a result of that. I'd like to ask more of a personal question from my own experience. I recently interviewed Pierre Pahliev. And as I was preparing for the interview, I was trying to figure out what was missing and what hadn't been done before or how to bring a new take to it. And I had looked at and watched for a while a lot of journalists trying to gotcha Pierre Pauliev.

And we can debate rightfully so. Rosemary Barton pushed him pretty hard and interrupted fairly regularly to try and disprove a point or challenge him. And then I juxtaposed Donna Friesen from Global News. her interview with Mark Carney and her interview with Pierre Poliyev. And recognizing I have my own biases and flaws, I had ChatGPT run through both transcripts. And it found that Donna Friesen treated Mark Carney like a statesman who was dealing with really tough files and that there were nuances to all the issues.

And with Pierre Polive, it was much more, chat GPT shared the feedback, that it was much more about how he was a failure, how he fell short, what his shortcomings were, whether he was a good leader, whether he misunderstood his role, all of these really harsh questions. And the overwhelming feedback I see from people is that there seems to be a lot of animosity from journalists to Pierre Pollyev.

And again, we can debate whether or not that's true. But I tried to just give him the space to lay out his vision. I didn't hear a lot of questions about what he would do in his first 90 days as prime minister, how he would approach the reconciliation file, like actually just trying to engage the issues. I didn't interrupt him a lot. I just gave him the space to speak. And a lot of people shared positive feedback. A lot of people said that I'm a shill for the conservatives by not challenging him more.

And I'm just trying to think through how do you approach interviews like that, where there's a lot on the line. It's important to get things on the record. But at the same time, personally, I've looked at the coverage of Pierre Poliev. And I find that he gets a lot more scrutiny than I feel like I see on the prime minister currently. And that just surprises me. Do you see that or am I just living in an echo chamber filled with nonsense? No, I think there's a couple of points to be made. First of all, Carney's done a remarkable turnaround from the liberal government of Justin Trudeau.

If you look at what he's accomplished over a year, it's pretty remarkable. He's got a deal with a pipeline for Alberta. We'll see whether that gets built. He's, we've got LNG pipelines approved. We've got $10 billion that's being put out so that First Nations can invest in and benefit from the resource development, not only in LNG and oil and gas, but also in critical minerals. He's cut taxes. He's done a lot. lot. He's traveled a lot. He's spent, he's put our defense spending at 2% now and is just, we're in the process of buying, uh, actually really new and important submarines. So if you look at all the accomplishments that he's done over a short period of time, um, it is pretty remarkable. Now, the jury is still out and we are going to, you know, the rubber hasn't hit the road with him yet. And I, and I think when the money starts,

going out the door and we'll see if, you know, liberals start benefiting from this and whether there's any kind of corruption that comes from this. I don't think he personally is corrupt, but, you know, people are human, it's human nature, right? If there's a lot of money going out the door and it's not watched carefully, there could be boondoggles for sure and there may be, you know, illegal activities on behalf of somebody. So we all have to pay attention to that. But you have to be objective. He's had a remarkable year for sure. And when you have to contrast that with Pierre Pahlia. This was a guy who was going to win a massive majority government until Trudeau left. And he blew it. He blew it. He got into, he didn't reach out to Doug Ford,

the Interior Premier, which he should have done, because he didn't think that, for was right wing enough. He didn't reach out to Tim Houston, who was very popular conservative, progressive conservative premier in Nova Scotia, again because he didn't think he was right wing enough. He alienated and went after Jean Choré, who could have been a remarkably important election person for him in the province of Quebec. So he cut that off. You know, he's, he's done, so he lost the election campaign, he lost his own seat. And, you know, we thought maybe he was going to, there were a time for, where it looks like he was going to, um, uh, show a different side of his person, of, of his person, but, uh, personality, uh, a nicer side, uh, to build bridges with,

with, um, um, more center-right conservatives. And he hasn't done that. And he hasn't done that. And he, he, he's he's he's continued to show a very partisan nasty side to him and right now what we're seeing playing played out on social media is this what is now erupting into a war in the conservative party between those who are against him and to those who are for him just you know two a week ago he got up and uh in british columbia and talking about the new bc conservative leader and said, I'm glad that you won because you beat these Eastern Canada liberal lobbyists. Well, he was talking about the supporters of Carolyn Elliott, who is a really very strong conservative, who lost only by 60 votes.

But she was a B.C. liberal previously. Yeah, she was. But so was anybody in that party was. the BC Liberal Party was was conservative than liberals, right? I mean, that's a mix of the two, but obviously people kind of like within, within BC, we're aware of who leaned liberal and who leaned conservative. Nobody, there's no dispute that Ms. Elliott is, he's a conservative. I mean, all of her, all of her, if you listen to what she's had in the campaign was pretty

conservative views. And she was supported by people like Ben Woodenfin and other people, and Andy, Anthony Koch, who worked for Pierre Polyev and they're very strong conservatives. Anyway, all I'm just saying is that when you lose an election campaign and your party begins to split, you're going to get a lot of attention on you. And he's not, he hasn't shown, he's not showing the ability to mend fences with Doug Ford and with other premiers, which he actually needs to do if he's going to win the country. And so you may be right in the sense that there is an unfair bias towards against the conservatives

in Ottawa. I think that's probably true and it's always been the case, generally speaking. But you cannot deny that what is going on right now is an internal war in the conservative party and that Pierre Polly is hanging by his finger. Nell's in my view. And Mark Carney's time is he will he will get much more critical coverage for sure. But he's just been moving so fast on a whole range of areas that, you know, he's getting he's getting the benefit of the doubt. But I think that will change over time. I guess my perception, because I'm not anywhere near the Ottawa bubble, I'm way out in British

Columbia is that I can't tell very clearly if, and we'll move on from this after, but whether or not it's journalists trying to write his political obituary or whether or not he does actually have these problems, because anyone in British Columbia watching David from Muson to Luce or others know what the difference between Caroline Elliott and Carolyn Findlay was. One was a true blue conservative, and Caroline Elliott had said things in the past that were much more middle, left of center in certain quotes. And she was, that was posted all on social media about her journey. And so that's more what he was speaking to.

Corey Tenike and Doug Ford are broadly seen by, I think, everyday people to be either, like Cory Tenike is a lobbyist who people have concerns about whether or not he is driven by his principles and values or whether or not he's a lobbyist trying to accomplish things for clients and other things. And so there's this mistrust. And when I interviewed Pierre, he said there are these group of lobbyists who have always had a foothold in political parties. And I don't want it. I'm going to say what I think is true.

And I'm going to fight those people. So to me, I view it much more as like a lobbyist versus politics being grounded in principles potentially versus like whether or not Pierre Polyev is hated by the base. I think the base like him. I think a lot of people on social media like him. I don't think he's hated by the base. But he is, first of all, you're right about. lobbyists. I mean, all the parties have them. And, you know, I try not to deal with lobbyists because they have their, they're, they've got their own self-interest at play here for sure. But the fact of the matter is that here is in trouble. I mean, I talk to conservative MPs. And you can see it being played out on social media where they're all fighting with, with one or another. And I don't know whether he's going to make it until Christmas. that's some breaking news.

Not that the party is going to, but the caucus, because of the Reform Act, which they've signed on to, the party can vote them out. And I don't see a successor right now, but I could see that happening and I could see them saying, okay, we're going to have an interim leader and then we're going to have a leadership race a couple years from now and see if we can find somebody. who can take on Mark Carney, and maybe by that point, the gold dust on his shoulders will have been blown off. Wow. You built relationships not only with ministers and political staff, but with cleaners, guards, cafeteria workers on Parliament Hill. I'm wondering how did those relationships develop and how did that inform your reporting? Well, look, I'm from a small town and everybody knows what you're doing. And so I have always operated in that I, you know, I talk to everybody. And as a journalist, that's the best way.

I mean, I, I know, I'm no BS here. I mean, I, you know, I talk to the cleaning staff. I talk to the security guards. I used to talk to the messengers and the, even the one time, there used to be an elevator operator in the house of commas. They don't have that anymore. But these people all have eyes and ears and they listen. and they will tell you. I mean, during the Senate spending scandal,

I can't tell you how many times guards would say, walk by me and whisper, the senator of so-and-so is around the corner, he's trying to avoid you. He's down this hallway, you know? And or people would give me, you know, documents or say, I've overheard this. But that's the job of a journalist.

You know, you've got to listen. That's the key thing. I've had, I said some journalists who worked with me. One guy, no names mentioned, but he always went out to lunches with deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers. You know, and I'd come back and I'd say, well, would you learn? Well, he ever learned anything because he never shut up because he was talking all the time. And, you know, you don't have to prove to somebody how smart you are.

You just have to go and listen to them and ask them questions and get them to trust you. And it doesn't have to be, and I, you know, like a lot of, I'm at a different stage in my life. So, you know, cabin ministers would more or less talk, call me back. But that's because I'm being around a long time. But for a young, when I started out and for the longest period of time, I didn't bother with cabin ministers. First of all, they're not going to tell you anything. And if they do tell you anything, they're probably just going to try to suck you into writing what they want. But if you talk to some members of their staff, they all want to feel they're important.

They all want to pass on information. And you learn stuff by talking to like legislative assistants who actually see all the documents that go to the minister. So those are the kind of ways you have to figure out how you can get information from people. Who you can talk to and who might know this. You know, also, you know, somebody just left as a chief of staff or just left as a legislative aide or communication director. follow up with them, keep up, because they know, they may not know six months from now what's going on, but they certainly know if they've stepped out the door a month ago, what the hell's been going on in that shop.

So that's the way you have to figure out, how can I get a story, who's going to give me the information, what do I want to learn, and then just work the phones, go and have lunch with people, try to get the story. And that's the fun part. The Globe's editorial board recently acknowledged that the media, including the Globe, failed journalistically in 2021 by initially reporting that the remains of 215 children had been found at Kamloops when ground penetrating radar had identified anomalies rather than human remains. Do you agree with that assessment?

Well, look, I don't know about that particular instance, but the community I came from, there was a little, I could look out my window when I was a young boy and then it was torn down, but there was a residential school there had been two residential schools in Chapel. One had, was burnt down and ended up, believe it or not, ended up being as the town dump. And the second, after they burned down, they built it near our house. So I could look out the window, I could see the residential school. It had gone by the time I was growing up, but the shell of the building was still there. And there used to be a little graveyard not far from that, quite not that far, but far enough

away from that school. And there were metal grave markings with paper and plastic or, but all the names had sort of been gone. And we knew it was, we'd call it an Indian graveyard when we were growing up. And I had no idea of anything about that. I just thought, oh, well, I don't know what this Indian graveyard was about. And when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came down with this report, I was at CDV then covering it.

And there were these healing sessions that I went were able to go on cover. and many of the people were speaking for the first time of what it was like about how the Indian agents and RC&P would come in and pick them right off the street and never even say goodbye of their parents. The sexual and abuse of violent abuse in the hands in some of the schools. And then it dawned on the, that graveyard was kids. these were kids who probably die of tuberculosis. They buried them. They never brought them the bodies back home. They just buried them near the school.

So I think, I don't know in this particular instance, but surely, the goodness, some of these raves are there with kids. Because if there was in my little community where there were, these were kids, I think, for Mussini, who had been taken into the Anglican residential school. and so they're buried there. So there's no doubt in my mind that this is, that that is, that actually happened and there are probably graves, for sure there has to be graves of indigenous children at that, at that site. So leaving all, I don't know what the, I'm not quiveling whatever the, the, the goal bed or

is saying, but for sure, I believe that there are graves there. As an indigenous person, I think there's a difference between respectfully listening to indigenous communities and it's suspending normal standards of verification. How do you think journalists should honor survivor testimony and indigenous knowledge while still independently testing the empirical claims being made? Well, you just do your job as a journalist, right? Try to get the facts and stick with the facts. and, you know, but anybody who's listened to these healing sessions, these are not people making, they're not making up stories. This is, some of these people, there was a woman who was very, very, very, could see a very, very shy person. And for the first time she spoke at that, and I'm telling you, I had tears in my eyes.

So that these people are not making this up at all. I mean, these are lived experiences. And as journalists, you have to, you know when it's true and not true. But in terms of, you know, the rest of the stuff, you have to, you know, fact check everything for sure. You know, but you have to do that in any case. You can't suspend your belief, right? How important from your perspective is it to speak to people you might really disagree with or not be aligned with? I've spoken with Francis Widowson about her perspective on the 215 in Camloops.

Tim Tealman, who's argued that we shouldn't be doing any reconciliation at all. Nigel Begar, who argues that there were benefits to colonization. And having these conversations has just helped me understand their perspective. How important is that from your perspective? Well, first of all, bravo to you because that's exactly what you're supposed to do as a journalist. You listen to all sides. and I'm the same as you, even though I may disagree with somebody. I listen to their viewpoints respectfully, and I try to incorporate, unless it's

bigotry or racism, otherwise I try to include their voices in my stories because that's our obligation to present all sides and let people make their own minds up. I can disagree with somebody and still be quite friendly with them. I mean, people have different perspectives on a whole range of issues. And I just don't think you have to be a journalist to it. I just think that as a human being, you should be respectful of everybody's opinions, unless it borders on bigotry or racism or misogyny. And, you know, I think you have to, you have to draw the line and say, look, I don't agree with you on that because that's crossing the line.

Agreed. Couldn't agree more. Tara Henley argues in her upcoming book, The Trust Spiral, that media helped create its own credibility crisis by abandoning objectivity, becoming politically homogenous, and growing disconnected from working class audiences. Do you think her central critique is fair? Well, I think it's much more complicated than that. I think the problem in it has been that print media has been in decline because of the advertising dollars have gone to Facebook or other social media. And so we're losing our local media. We're losing our national media. and that's a big factor. There are fewer reporters.

When I first came to Ottawa, there were 22 reporters at Canadian Press. I think there's now six. And everybody had a beat, indigenous affairs, it used to be called Indian and Northern affairs then. You had consumer affairs, you had health reporters. You had beat reporters on defense. and economic reporters and a whole,

everything was covered. And the beet reporters are very highly knowledgeable because they really cover their departments, like fisheries, for example, they actually knew everything. And now, I would say probably 80% of government is probably not even covered anymore because we have so few beat reporters

to be able to do that. So that's one factor that comes to play. The rise of social media, where everybody feels they're a reporter and comments and everybody's, and that's another big factor. And unfortunately, a lot of journalists feel that they can use social, they can go out in social media and give their own opinions on issues, which may be different from what they're trying to write.

And I think news reporters should not be doing that, should not be allowed to do that. but that's going on. And you've also seen, which is probably goes actually way back to the early times, but you're starting to, you know, you have Fox News, which only gives people a point of view from that particular point of view. You've got, you know, MS, NBC, but it's now MS, which gives a left wing type of view. CNN is probably a little center left.

So you have these spears where everybody can just come. comfortably go and get everything, they can go to an echo chamber and hear everything back and forth. And there are very few serious news organizations where you can go to and get, which more or less balanced coverage. I think the goal was pretty good at. It's pretty, provides very balanced coverage on unbalanced, so does in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, more conservative in terms of his editorials, but really good, really good solid journalism. You know, the Guardian will give you a left-wing perspective, but the, they're actually reporting is quite good. So there are a few, but there are fewer news outlets that can provide really

good balanced coverage. And I'm hoping that over time when, because communities are going to want to be serviced by, well, want to know what's going on in their community, that young people, perhaps somebody like you, will say, you know, I, I, I, can serve my community by doing an online version of what would be in a newspaper, tell people what's going on and locally, what's the cultural things going on, what's sports going on, what's happening in at City Hall, because we do need to be informed. And you're not going to get it from Reddit and you're not going to get it from X. You're not going to get it from Instagram. So all I challenge you is you're doing this right now, for example. You are in your own podcast,

you're providing news to your people in that in your area. I don't know how wide your podcast is, but I'm sure you're servicing a particular area of your British Columbia. So she's right in some senses, but I think she's oversimplifying it. Okay. I'm wondering, you just commented on the globe being pretty middle grounded. what do you think of the criticism that the Globe and Mail is more left-leaning and the National Post is more right-leaning?

Well, the National Post is more right-leaning for sure. I mean, it's a conservative newspaper and it supports the conservatives, and some of its selections for the front page are pretty clearly conservative. The globe is not a left-linked paper. Any stretch of the imagination. I mean, it's a business paper. You know, it's center right. You may have some colonists who are on the left for sure, but the, and the editorial page editor, Pat Brathauer is not a left-winger, I can assure you that.

But it's basically a center newspaper. Sometimes it leans a little to the right, sometimes a little to the left. You reportedly avoided voting federally for decades because you believed it helped preserve political objectivity. I'm doing the same thing. I haven't voted provincially or federally in quite a few years now since I started interviewing politicians like the Premier of BC and Pierre Pollyave. Do you think that that is the right direction for people who are reporting or trying to cover these types of issues? Well, personally, for me it is. And obviously for you feel the same way. You know, look, a lot of people feel that it's their obligation as a citizen to vote, and I certainly don't begrudge that. But this is just a very personal thing for me that I don't want to feel like I'm biased in any way, even though, of course, I have my biases.

Everybody does. But it's just something that I feel it's the right thing for me to do was not to vote federally. I voted provincially. I voted municipal elections, but I've never voted federally. And I probably won't vote. Well, the next election campaign is if it's three or four years from now, I'll probably will vote for the first time in 50-some years. Critics argue that news organizations receiving federal journalism tax credits

or payments created through the Online News Act may be perceived as financially dependent on the same government they are supposed to. scrutinize. What safeguards do you think are necessary to support editorial independence or public confidence in that independence? Well, I don't think that any news organization should be accepting these kinds of arrangements. I know the gold does on the labor stuff, but my personal opinion is I don't think we should do that. But here's what I do think we should do. I think that. I think that there should be tax incentives to people who subscribe to a Canadian publication or Canadian podcast. If it's Canadian and I subscribe to it, I should be able to get a tax break. And it doesn't

matter what it is. As long as it's a Canadian news source of some kind and you subscribe to, should be able to get a tax break. And this doesn't, this gives you the freedom of choice. You can freely subscribe to whatever, if you want to subscribe to Rebel News, subscribe to Rebel News or the Western Standard, that's fine. Or the Toronto Star. There shouldn't be a litmus test of what is a news organization. If it's, first of all, so I think that would be the best way of doing that.

And secondly, I think there should also be tax incentives for advertisers. If they advertise in the global mail, if they advertise on your podcast, they should be able to get a tax break. They can't get a tax break for the New York Times or any or U.S. media at all or any kind of media. But if it's Canadian media, then they should be able to get a tax break. That, to me, would be a way to encourage homegrown journalism. And it would also give people the freedom of choice. And by tax incentives like this, the government can't go after you. They can't threaten to pull money or because they don't like what you're writing about.

To me, that's a simpler, cleaner system. I think we do need help. News media in this country needs help. But I think that's a better solution than government giving them money or depending on government grants or whatever. Agreed. Young journalists, as I'm sure you're aware, are entering the industry with fewer jobs,

less mentorship, intense pressure to publish quickly, and constant demands to build a personal brand. What are we at risk of losing from the journalism you were taught? Well, look, when Black Lives Matter happened, everybody realized that our newsrooms were not reflective of Canadian society. And I went to Philip Crawley, who was our publisher at the time, I said, Philip, I'd like to mentor two racialized students every year. And we'll, so they can get jobs.

Like, no point going on out hire somebody and having them fail. They've got to learn. So he agreed. and we're now, the program has been in his fifth year and it's being renewed for another five years. The 10 students that we've mentored, and by mentor, I mean, you have to write. You have to write so that we can get you, you get bylines, you can get jobs. And all these kids have gotten jobs. I've been pretty impressed with them.

They could, you know, there's no, there's no, the future is pretty grim, you know, in this. business of ours right now. And these are smart kids who could go and become lawyers or scientists or computer specialists or whatnot, but they want to be journalists. And my view of them is they're, they're not the way you're describing it. They actually care and they want to learn and they want to do good journalism that's going to make a difference in people's lives. So I'm not, I'm not pessimistic about that? There are some people who are in for the ego and want to be social influencers, but I will tell you that the people, at least I've mentored, are not like that. And I'm much more optimistic about the future of journalism than a lot of people, because I think that

eventually you're going to see communities in communities that have no, um, uh, uh, local media that there will be people who, young entrepreneurs who will come in and will create online versions of newspapers and people will subscribe to it because they want to know what's going on in their community and, you know, I think they'll be successful. So I choose to be an optimist and not a pessimist. Well, I'm glad to hear that. May I ask, which journalists working right now in Canada do you believe are cut from the same cloth? is you willing to develop sources, challenge power, and pursue difficult stories. For me, it's Holly Doan from Blacklock's reporter.

But who stands out to you? Well, Steve Chase, my writing colleague on a lot of the big stories, I think that Marika Walsh, who I hire is a real go-getter. I always try to put some of the young reporters near her. She works the phone like you can't imagine. and she has no political bias. She's just, let's go. The matter who you are, I'm going to hold you to a higher standard.

I'm going to shine a light. So I think she's just an excellent reporter. Holly Dome has done some good stuff too. Holly is, by the way, around my, she'll be a little younger than me. She's been out of it for a long time. to be a CTV had been a China reporter. And they're doing some good stuff because they remind me of I.F. Stone's journalism. I.F. Stone was a famous American journalist who did journalism only through documentation.

And what she's doing this is the same thing. They're only using access to information to get stories. And she just did a really good piece on the Farm Credit Corporation CEO, spending ridiculous amounts of money on international travel and fancy dinners and whatnot. And frankly, I'm disappointed that nobody else has picked up that story because that woman should be fired. She's clearly abusing taxpayers' money. You have broken stories that have triggered resignations, investigations, and sparked national debates. When you look back, which stories are you the most proud of?

Well, I think that I think obviously the Essence and Lavlin story is really an important one and I'll tell you why if they had gotten a lot being allowed to get away with that powerful corporations would have simply said

you know what we don't we're being charged we're facing charges of bribery or corruption you know we're just going to hire a couple of lobbyists and they're going to go to the prime minister's office and the prime minister's office is going to tell that the justice minister dropped the charges. I think about that.

That's a very dangerous precedent of what happened in a democracy. So to me, that is a, to me, was one of my most important stories. I think our coverage of the Chinese foreign interference in our democratic life is really important. It led to the establishment of a foreign agent registry, changes to the criminal code to outlaw foreign interference. changes to the CESIS Act to allow CESA to be much more forthcoming and alerting municipalities and premiers and corporations of the extent of, say, Chinese or Indian foreign interference or whatever foreign interference that may be going on. My coverage when I was at CDV of the Senate spending scandal led to significant changes in terms of transparency and financial controls over how senators

spend our money. Those are, you know, I think important stories. I already mentioned, I think, the No-Fi list kids, which I think has been an important change. You know, we were able through our coverage to stop Walway from forcing the telecoms to pull out Huawei gear because it could use to spy on Canadians. We did, we found out that, you know, Canadian universities were sharing their R&D with Chinese military institutions, which is mind-boggling, but they were. And that led the government to ban universities from getting financial support if they were cooperating with Chinese military institutions. And it also led to banning Chinese and takeovers in certain sectors of the economy, like AI or quantum and certain types of other high-tech stuff.

So those are the kind of stories that I think I have made a real difference in, have proved, I have made improvements for the good of our Canadian democracy. Two more very quick questions for you. Thank you for being willing to share your time. Do you have any regrets, things you would have done differently looking back on them now? Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's, you have regrets about, you know, maybe I could have be more careful in stories that I've done. My, you know, daily journalism is fraught with, it's easy to make mistakes.

And those are the ones where you just wake up sometime in the middle of the night and say, oh, damn, I should have written it this way. You know, you try to be as careful as you possibly can, but you do make mistakes. the key thing is to correct them. What I like about the globe is that if we make a mistake, you have to correct it. And I don't like when it happens, but you have to do it. It just have to make those because we're all human, right? We make burn them fallible. We make mistakes.

As you retire, and I know you mentioned you're still going to continue doing scoops and you're going to be mentoring the next generation and still be involved, But as you retire, how would you like Canadians to remember the work that you've done? Well, I just, I want people to, and I want the younger journalist to do accountability journalism, to hold the powerful corporations and politicians and institutions to account. You know, our democracies can't survive without free press. No democracy can survive without a free press. and a free press is going to cause trouble.

That's what we do, because the powerful don't like it when we expose the stupid mistakes that they make or misspending or in some cases outright corruption. But it's absolutely necessary, and that's the only way, that's the thing I'm very proud of. I mean, I've never sold my soul to anybody. And that's what I want journalists to be like, don't sell your soul, look yourself in the mirror, make sure you have a moral compass, and try to do the best you can of speaking up for people who have no voice. Well, thank you for joining us today and thank you for all the work that you've done. I think it gives Canadians a lot of hope. I think this conversation has provided a lot of hope because, as you know, there are a lot of fears about the powerful and the influence that they have and how they can impact policies, impact communities, and with people like yourself willing to hold them accountable, question them. At times, at risk to yourself, is an incredibly important role you play in our democracy and helping make sure that there's another generation coming up.

I am very grateful for. So thank you so much, Robert, for being willing to join us today. Well, thank you very much, Aaron. Have a good day.