Shaun Newman Podcast - #339 - Tom Korski

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

He is the managing editor for Blacklock's Reporter in Ottawa and has 40 years in the news industry.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

Hey everybody, this is Paul Brandt. This is Wayne Peters. This is Sean Baker. Hi, I'm Megan Murphy. This is Jess Moskaloop. I'm Rupa Supermonea. This is Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks, happy Wednesday.

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delivering to your farm, commercial, or oil fuel location. For more information, visit them at Hancock, petroleum.com. He's the managing editor for Blacklocks reporter. I'm talking about Tom Korski. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Tom Korski, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast.

Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Tom Korski. So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on. My pleasure, Sean. Now, Tom, I'm going to assume a lot of people here in Canada know exactly who you are, but I never should assume anything. I got listeners all over the place. I want to start with Tom telling me who Tom is.

and we'll see where it goes from there. Oh, yeah, no assumption there. Managing under a Blacklocks reporter, it's a website. We're in our 11th year, Parliament Hill. We cover, we follow the money. We cover bills, regulations, federal courts and tribunals, public accounts, access to information. It's all about the money. We don't cover politics to the degree that's possible.

Not interested in who's hot, who's not. It's really just all about the money. I've lived and worked in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, and a small town Catholic boy married with the same woman for 36 years, some mortgage children. That's the whole Tom Korski story that's not enough for a memoir, that's for sure. I tell you what, I respect, you know, I meet a lot of people, and this is no judgment on them at all. But, you know, that have traveled as much as you have and worked in all these different places and usually end up. divorced, no kids, something along that line. So my hat's off to you.

You got any secrets on being married that long? I think Parliament Hill for sure is a home record. It has been for years. People work late nights. And there used to be a Solicitor General in Trudeau, the Elders Cabinet, Bob Kaplan. I never forgot this. He's passed away now. And I remember in the 93 Parliament, and they have a session for first term.

And it was a little workshop. And we listened in to Bob Kaplan's advice. And you would expect to former Solicitor General to have the most incredible, profound, you know, commentary and guidance for newly elected federal legislators. And Bob stood up and he said, one tip, lay off the booze. Good advice. Lay off the booze. And if you're going to work late, go home. And I've been doing that for 36 years, so far so good. Hey, fair enough. I think, yeah, that's probably good advice for everyone, lay off the booze. And if you're going to work late, go home.

I mean, you only get one life to live. And, you know, I got three young kids, Tom. I certainly know about trying to enjoy the years where, you know, they're growing up and they're growing up awfully fast. Yeah, the kids, I work from home for a spell. Those are moments I never regretted. I feel bad for people don't get a chance to do that, and there are some in circumstances you can't. Kids are great.

We wanted to have kids, and we raised them. I know our sons, well, they're older now, but yeah, that was anyway, like I say, small-town Catholic boy, family is very important to me. Now, you mentioned you worked pretty much across Canada. You didn't say every province by any stretch of the imagination, but several different parts, certainly different areas of this great country. What stands out to you, if you don't mind me asking about the different areas in Canada that you've had the privilege to report and work from? Well, I've been a rate payer in three provinces.

This is going to sound schmence, but it's true. I've been a rate pay in three provinces. I've done quite detailed work. in all 10. And I came away with a deep respect for the genius of the fathers of Confederation. You know what I discovered in my own limited experience, Sean? There are 10 little republics in this country. They're quite distinct. Nova Scotians are not like Prince Edward Islanders. And Saskatchewan residents are not the same as people in Manitoba. They're just not. They have different histories. They have different demographics. Southern Alberta is an absolutely

distinct society. And it's completely different from southern Ontario. I walked away with a deep respect, whether it was a fluke, I don't think so, or the hidden genius of the people who put our country together. And they said, you must let these 10 little empires run their own affairs on the whole. And you will have a functioning state. You try to bring down the hammer from Ottawa every single time it leads to trouble because this is such a profound, complicated, and fantastic country with some of the hardest working people you ever saw. I once knew a man in the Senate. And he said to me with a straight face, the Senate was a source of stability in this country. And I said, you don't fool yourself. The Senate can burn to the ground and no one will notice

in the 10 little empires we have in this confederation, that's where they come up with the wealth, that's where they do the work and pay the taxes. That's the beauty of Canada. You know, my father came here from the old country. In 1926, you talk about winning the lottery. He felt that way to be born in this country. What a gift.

Yeah, well, well said. You know, you talk about with Blacklockes, you guys follow the money and you try to, you're not, I'm going to butcher this a little bit, Tom, but basically you're not following the politics, you're falling the money, which is, I mean, that's going to tell the story anyways. What's the money saying today? What's the biggest thing that's caught your eye so far? You take the time frame that brings people up to speed. I think at the moment there has been a great legacy. I think it's very far reaching of the pandemic. I think people discovered that you have a federal government that's very expensive.

mediocre. I don't think that's a partisan remark. It's unbelievably expensive. We have 100-year debts now from the pandemic, and the kids are going to be paying the interest on those bonds, all their working lives. Parliament outspent what Parliament did in the Second World War. That's a fact. And it was all borrowed money. A lot of the money was wasted. And there's lots of metaphors we've seen in terms of contracting, in terms of conduct, in terms of this, when a slight stress of the pandemic fell on Parliament Hill, and it exposed really extraordinary lack of competence. The God bless them, the Department of Health literally could not run a mask warehouse. Something else we learned.

The pandemic, like I think all moments of stress, fell very unevenly on people. But what doesn't? Drought, war, illness. It always falls unevenly. It doesn't affect us all the same. The pandemic for many people was probably the worst thing that ever happened to that. Lost their business. May have suffered death or illness in the family.

The pandemic was the best thing that happened to some people. there's pandemic millionaires who got sole source contracts. That's a fact. We think we've covered heavy emphasis on the contracting that went through the pandemic. The feds borrowed half a trillion dollars. They spent hundreds of billions of dollars under the name of pandemic emergency spending. They created some instant millionaires on sole source contracting. These were friends.

when people talk now, but there ought to be a judicial inquiry into pandemic contracting, my opinion, my two cents, Sean. If they ever do that, someone's gone to prison. It was that rough. When I hear you say that, I guess I'm like, how does that happen? Or has this been happening in different governments through the course of history? Tom, I'm when I hate to say this to my listeners all the time because they probably get annoyed with it. but I feel like I'm just like green and I'm trying to, you know, catch up, so to speak, but I'm kind of losing because the world's moving so fast. But when I hear you say, you know, if they do an inquiry, somebody's going to jail, I go, well, press the start button then because I think we need to clean up some,

we need to clean up some of this mess that's been going on. But I can't figure out for the life of me if this is just how governments work or this is how this government works. I think this is over 150 years old. I mean, there were members of the McDonald cabinet who were threatened with prison. One of them had to get out of the country in a hurry for very close dealings with railway lobbyists. There was an old railway lobbyist in the day he said in McDonald's last term, 1891, that they were a hungry lot in Ottawa.

They sure were. This has always been the case, but that's the story of every democracy. It's the tension between power and ethics. But the more money that's on the table, I mean, it's Shakespeare and Sean. It's the root of all evil. It's too easy. The money's too easy. Dogg on it.

When the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 21, March 11th, 2020, you could see the lobbyists running across Parliament Hill with their briefcases flying. They could smell it. It was absolutely single-minded. And we saw in real time through internal. records, there was hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars went out the door with phone calls because somebody knew just who to call. That's Ottawa. That's London. That's Paris. I'd be surprised of Washington and Canberra don't operate the same way. That's the eternal story. Like I say,

power and ethics. So what's the answer? The answer is more accountability and more accountability. who was at Al Smith, presidential candidate failed, the United States, who said the cure for every ill in democracy is more democracy, just start laying it on. More public accounts, more inquiries and investigations, more accountability. You know, when Stephen Harper left town, and I was quite a harsh critic of Harper, but only with the passage of time have I grown to appreciate things. I realized I didn't appreciate when he left office in 2015. And it was things that were reforms that were not obvious. He appointed a parliamentary budget officer. He appointed a procurement ombudsman.

He amended the access to information law to apply to Crown Corporations. He passed the Financial Accountability Act that mandated for the first time that every dollar that subsidized internal polling had to result in that poll being published on a government website so that people could see what they paid for. It never happened before. We had a story just today, Sean, procurement ombudsman saying he knows for a fact when he's going after sweetheart contracts, he knows department managers who are concealing records he knows exist. This is what I mean. More accountability, more democracy. It's the only way we get out of this. Well, here's a, you know, coming from a media background, how do you get more accountability when to my eyes, it feels like, you know, accountability should come from journalists, reporters, etc, on the ground specifically in Ottawa or, you know, across Canada. And at times it, I mean, it's changing. The landscape is ever changing. If, if through COVID, if there's one.

one thing I think that has been a blessing, it's taken some time, but you're starting to see independence start to rise up. But in a time where the media kind of, I don't even know what the right term here is, Tom, sweeps it under the rug. I don't even know if they sweep it under the rug. They just kind of throw it over and don't talk about it. How do you get accountability when we have publicly funded media that just goes along with whatever the government tells them to, or at least that's from my eyes. You won't get it, which is why they have to revoke those subsidies. Media is in a death spiral.

Everyone knows that. The subsidy is very expensive, $595 million. In the concessions that were approved by Parliament in 2019, it's simply staggering some. There's half a billion dollars you don't have for diabetes pumps or playground equipment or the wheelchair ramp at the old soldiers home. Instead, it's going to these incompetent money-losing corporate management. managers in media. Media did two things wrong, I think. It was a huge mistake to take the money, but they didn't know what they were doing. And they saw free money. They didn't understand that

when you take money from the government, you cannot rely on government subsidies and be independent of government control at the same time. It's impossible. You are literally on the take. So there was sort of a perfect storm of that and a couple of other factors that I think have discredited media. It's irreversible. My opinion, I've been doing this for 41 years. It's never going back. When you break that bond, your reader, listener, viewer must believe you are an honest broker. Are we infallible? No. Only our savior is infallible, Sean, but our readers, and I'm sure it's the same for your viewers and listeners know. If we make an error, we're just born that way. If you think we're stupid or partisan, you just know that we're born

that way and we come by our flaws honestly. It was not bought and paid for. Media is going to die on those subsidies. So what do you see coming in the future then for media, Tom? You know, You got these different bills coming through the government trying to, I don't know, if hamstring is the right word, but try and really censor the internet and, I don't know, free speech and everything else. What do you think is coming when you look at it? You talk about 41 years. You've had a pretty good view of how things have gone over the last four decades. What do you see coming down the pipe? It's going to be fantastic. You withdraw those subsidies. you're going to have money losing, badly run media corporations fail, as they should, because the marketplace is never wrong.

If people aren't buying it, they're not watching it, reading it, or listening to it, you have no role in the marketplace. How can the people be wrong? And so the result of that will be, you're going to open up some markets, which means there's going to be 100 startups. it's going to be exactly what the media landscape was in, for instance, 1900. You're going to have independent ownership. You're going to have local ownership.

You're going to have people who actually care about the community. They're going to cover the school board because their kids go to that school. They're going to cover the local police department because they live on that street where the crime occurs. And they will send reporters to parliament because they will want to know what their members are up to. When I started in the press gallery, there were independent reporters down there for the Calgary Herald, Regina, Richard Leder Post, Windsor, Starr, they were an evening paper at the time, if you can remember, and there were others all gone now, all consolidated with corporate ownership, and now they run it. As soon as the corporation comes in, you lose independent ownership.

You have no connection with your community anymore. And the product, they call it a product news. It becomes like a 99-cent hamburger. And you just stamp those out. And if you need to cut costs, just put some more sawdust in the fill and hope the customer doesn't notice. Well, they notice every time. You revoke the subsidies. It's going to be fantastic.

You're going to have media that's responsive, profitable, and reports on things that you care about. Who doesn't want that? Well, I tell you who does. You said it. The Department of Canadian Heritage that wants to regulate media, regulation of the Internet, this is one of the, unbelievable initiatives of this cabinet. They have a fetish for control of the Internet. No one can blame them.

Who doesn't want to control the Internet? They do it in North Korea. Of course, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, and want to control what people say about him. Who doesn't? Every other previous cabinet in the history of the Internet shrank from that, said, no, hands off the Internet. Not these guys.

They haven't passed a bill yet, but they've been trying and trying and trying because they're advocates of free speech covers the gamma politically, demographically, retired judges, former CRTC commissioners, union leaders, business people, hands off the internet because it's all we have if you're going to control the mainstream media, but they can't resist.

Isn't that, shouldn't that terrify all of them though, Tom? Like, anytime you put us in the category of bringing up North Korea, which I'm sure they're like, oh, we're not like that at all. But, I mean, anytime you're going to put it in that type of category, shouldn't that just make everyone take about 50 steps back? Absolutely. No, it makes your blood run cold. I remember former Heritage Minister now and Ryan,

and Mr. Stephen Gibbo testified in committee. He said this. I'm quoting him accurately. He said his concern was that internet, unregulated internet content would lead to questioning and criticism of. of government institutions. And you're listening to this and saying, well, your damn rights, that's the whole point.

Maybe we don't think the governor of the Bank of Canada is so hot and he should be fired. Maybe we don't think the RCMP is much of a police force and the commissioner should be fired. By all means, let's harshly criticize government institutions. I don't come to work every day, the Brighton Cabinet's day. What do they need?

me for. We once had a subscriber say, God bless her, it was an absolutely heartfelt remark. It was almost a cry of anguish in the stream of consistent messaging you get from much of the media. She said, you know, I always thought that reporters were supposed to stick up for the little guy. And I said to her, yeah, I thought so too. That's why I got a job in a newsroom in 19. Because that's what I thought too. And we're not going to stop thinking that. I agree with you, Sean. Anyone goes to regulate the internet.

That's the hill to die on. Well, Tom, I don't know the answer. You said you got a job in 1980, work in the press. What took you to Blacklocks? What was the, I don't, maybe it's the origin story, but what brought that about?

What was important about moving towards that medium? Well, it's the, everything is on the internet now. There's no doubt about it. But there was also, there was a specific incident. And in 2011, there was a bill introduced in the House of Commons. And our business, we were in a slightly different business at the time. We were doing a lot of Canadian documentaries. And there was a bill that was introduced. It was an omnibus budget bill. This was in the Harper Day. And, in, Included in the bill was a clause that repealed the Fair Wages Act that went back to 1935. And that was an old Depression-era law that said a mandated payment of union wages on public works. Well, whatever you think about that, that was, you know, that was legislation. And there were some lobbyists didn't like it, and they repealed that. Well, the world only found out about that because there was an MP from Winnipeg in the day named Pat Martin, went on to lose his seat. And he had a staffer in his office who read that omnibus budget bill and said, my goodness, do you realize they just repealed?

We just voted to repeal the fair wages act. I remember reading this and thinking, holy macro, are you telling me reporters don't read bills anymore? Because when I, like I say, we're in the documentary business, but when I came, going back to my days covering the Alberta legislature, you had to know how a bill becomes a law, Sean, that was your job. that's literally what you got paid for was to cover bills so that you could tell people what laws they were that were governing them and it got to the point where the whole press gallery was so had such an obsession with trivia minutia who's hot who's not who's wearing uh you know colorful socks who said something funny it got that grim they weren't even reading bills anymore we said you know what we have to get back to the bible newswise we are going to

go back to what it used to be. We're going to cover bills and regulations. And people have really supported that. It's been very encouraging, but not surprising. You know, Canadians want information from Ottawa. I don't think they actually look to media in Parliament Hill to tell them what to think or what their opinion should be. They really just want the information.

And they can form their own opinion on their own, stand up on their own two legs, and think for themselves, that's exactly what they want. But you have reporters who cannot and will not deliver that. Well, I tell you what, you just said that beautifully. If there's anything I learned through all of COVID, is they don't want to be told, I don't want to be told what to think. I want the information presented to me

so I can look through it all and go home and make up my own damn mind. And for about two years, they did the complete opposite, where they told you what to do, how to think, where to go, everything else. And I think everybody in their dog is fed up with that, at least out west. I assume out east it is very similar because I've met lovely people across the entire country. So I couldn't

agree more with that sentiment. You know, as time closes in on me, Tom, I don't want to keep you here too long. But I had a listener when they heard you were coming on, ask about the importance of the press gallery. And, you know, once again, green on this side, I was like, sure, I'll bring it up. Tom, I got no problem with that. How important is having a membership to the press gallery from a blacklock's perspective and maybe for just the everyday citizen of Canada? How important is that, well, the gallery?

How important is it? Well, we're in a dispute with the gallery. I saw that. litigation. Yes. It's a highly entertaining story, and I try to give it to you in Cole's notes. What happened, Sean, was when the subsidies came along and started to get a little hot, people didn't like that. Taxpayers resented it. And media, I'm sorry to say, were not forthcoming on reporting the story. How much do we take? How much do we apply for? How does it affect our coverage? Didn't want to talk about it, pretended it didn't exist. half a billion dollars. I even heard a former publisher, the Winnipeg Free Press, Bob Cox, I knew him

when he was a CP reporter back in Ottawa many years ago. And Bob said, I don't tell my reporters what to write and expressed resentment and indignation that anyone would suggest that the Winnipeg Free Press would be nice on the feds just because they accepted a $1 million cash in a subsidy, to which I replied, but Bob, there's a law called the Conflict of Interest Act says a member of parliament has to report a $200 gift, anything over $200 from a lobbyist or any other individual. That's, what is that? A good placement on hockey tickets. Who thinks MPs can be bought for $200? Well, MPs do.

They put it in a law. Who thinks the Winnipeg Free Press is so pure as the driven snow that they will not be influenced by someone throwing a million dollars cash on the publisher's desk? Come on. Well, after this, the press gallery developed a fetish about ethics. And this is unbelievable a year and a half ago. They came up with a new code of conduct. And they were going to ask new applicants, not existing members, new applicants to explain. and their finances to just establish everyone was pure as the driven snow.

And we said, oh, okay, it's going to be that way, is it? So we went into an annual general meeting and we proposed an amendment. And the amendment said, okay, hot wheels, if you want to be ethical, how about every single current gallery member reports annually on every application successful or not for every payroll, rebate, tax credit, grant, subsidy, or federal concession of any kind. And we put that on the Press Gallery website in big, bold letters so the whole country can see. We're going to report that annually. Well, I'm sorry to say, Sean, it was voted down 18 to 1. It was a highly entertaining annual general meeting. And ever since then, the gallery's been given us a hard time. I've been,

And as I mentioned, a member of the press gallery starting in 1993. Oh, now they want to terminate. I love the words. I got a letter from the president of the press gallery. And he's going to terminate my membership because we don't play ball. I don't want to use expedites. We don't play ball. And the press gallery is exactly what's wrong with the press.

We always say the press gallery is contemptible and weak because the press is contemptible and weak. they weren't, Sean, they wouldn't be crawling for federal aid. Well, Tom, I appreciate you bringing us up to speed. I'd read the article and I, it seems like everywhere you go, no matter if you're in your shoes, my shoes, you know, you pick anyone's shoes right now. If you're for trying to open things up, transparency, integrity, accountability, those types of words. There are people that are pushing back on that hard. Either way, I want to make sure I get you out of here on time. I appreciate the work that Blacklocks does because like I say, across Canada, you're in a select company of people

that when news breaks, it seems to be coming from your desk or your team's desk. Before I let you out of here. Just quickly. We always do the crude master final question. If you're going to stand behind a cause, then stand behind it absolutely. What's one thing Tom stands behind? I stand behind balanced budgeting. I think you do that for the kids. I believe that so strongly. And I've had this conversation with our own sons who are now post-secondary and entering the workforce. If you care about your children, you pays you go balance the budget i do not know why that is a partisan statement it's all about the money why saddle the kids tomorrow with money that we spent foolishly today i think it's selfish and i think

it's wrong i really do and i guess that's my speech john that's that's the only speech i got appreciate you coming on and give me some of your hard-earned time um i hope in the future we can get you back. Either way, thanks for hopping on this morning and giving me some of your hard-earned time. My pleasure. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. You're very gracious to invite me. Thank you, Sean.