Shaun Newman Podcast - #345 - Tom Korski 2.0

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Tom the managing editor of Blacklock's Reporter returns. What does the money say about China interfering with Canadian elections, Emergency Commission & has Premier Danielle Smith made any waves out east? Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Emergencies Act Inquiry https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/

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 Gunnreed, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday, hump day. Hope everybody's week is cruising along. I got to point out if you're paying attention to the Emergency Commission that wraps up this week.

I actually got Trudeau on Friday is what I believe I'm seeing. You know, you had Mendocino yesterday. That was painful. Um, the director of CIS on Monday, some, some pretty heavy, uh, hitters here coming in the next couple days. Freeland's on. You get the point. Uh, if you're wanting to, I'm not saying it'll be good television, because sometimes, uh, these political characters seem to just know how to talk about nothing for an extended period of time. But either way, I really suggest that, uh, you, you take a peek there. I'll put the, I'll put the link back in the show notes. So if you're wondering where to go find it, you can find it there. Um, before we get to, uh, Mr. Tom.

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780808, 50, 25. Now, let's get on that tail of the tape brought to you by Hancock Petroleum. For the past 80 years, they've been an industry leader in bulk fuels, lubricants, methadone, chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial, or oilfield locations. For more information, visit them by Hancock.comptroleum.ca.ca. He's the managing editor for Blacklocks Reporter. I'm talking about Tom Cors. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Tom Korski, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, I'm joined by Tom Korski. So Tom, thanks for hopping back on.

My pleasure, Sean. You know, it was only a couple weeks ago. You were on for the first time, and I think the listener enjoyed it so much. I enjoyed it. Now when I see news stories come up, I think to you almost instinctively to have you back on. So I appreciate you answering the call for, you know, only a couple weeks later. Not at all. That's very gracious to say. Thank you, Sean. Well, the story that caught my eye and there's a bunch that I'd love to get your thoughts on in the time constraints we have today.

But the one that really, you know, when I go back and listen to our first episode, you talk about Blacklock's, you know, we follow the money. Well, there was the story about 11 elected officials with ties to the, you know, the, you know, the Chinese regime essentially. This was the line that caught my eye, and I thought immediately of you guys. The Chinese regime has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Canadian politicians and campaign operatives. At least 11 candidates received money from the Chinese during the 2019 federal election. What, I don't know, Tom, what are your thoughts on this? What the heck does that even mean?

It's interesting, isn't it? The cabinet and the federal, for instance, Canadian security intelligence, It was the federal spy agency. I've always said very difficult to prove that foreign interference affected the outcome of an election, even in a specific writing. And that's true. Fortunately, it doesn't matter. If they can find one dollar that was donated to a campaign or spent against a campaign that was not reported. and can be traced back to a Chinese communist agent, you're off to the races. That's a felony.

That's against the law in Canada. There's a problem. One problem is Elections Canada. Let's be candid. Elections Canada operates with virtually no oversight of parliament. Any time the cats away, the mice will play. Elections Canada, my opinion, is a weak organization. A couple of years ago, actually it was about three years ago. We did our own investigation about a particular riding, and we worked with a reporter in Israel. And we traced back what was clearly a legal interference in a certain by-election happened to be in Burnaby, BC. Elections Canada, they use investigators or retired RCMP, white-collar crime officers, forgive me, not the crackerjack unit and the RCMP.

They're slow and they're ineffective. That's why there's people don't, you don't see people going to the penitentiary based on elections charges. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It means they're very, very slow. Give you another example about Elections Canada. For a hundred years,

we've had a national list of registers, registered electors, national voters list. And for an equal amount of time, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has known exactly who immigrates to Canada and who's a landed resident waiting for their papers. At no time did anyone compare the two lists, Sean, until about six years ago. And elections Canada discovered there was over 100,000 ineligible foreigners on the national voters list. What did they do?

They were asked, well, did you go back and see if these people cast ballots? and if it affected outcomes. Do you know what their response was? They reported this to Parliament. They said it's too much work. We'd have to go back and actually open up poll bags. We can't be bothered. What's my point?

Our elections are known to have some monkey business. Anyone who says it doesn't exist is simply wrong. The problem is elections Canada, is supposed to be the cop on the beat, they're not going to get it done. And Parliament won't, sign a committee of elections. There have been MPs and senators call for this for years. We have a committee on science. We have a committee on agriculture. We don't have a committee on elections to keep an

eye on these people. Did Chinese money go into the 2019 campaign? Well, we know that there was Chinese influence. We know that there was in Mandarin, Cantonese, and simplified Chinese opinion chat rooms. There were communist agents who were operating. We know this because Even the feds admit it. There have been members of the Chinese-Canadian community who've testified for years, Sean. Editors of Chinese Language Dailys have said these people are operating all the time. The RCMP say they know that Chinese agents are operating in Canada. There have been instances where Chinese communist agents have targeted what they see as enemies of the regime,

for instance, a Muslim Uyghur Student Association McMaster University in Hamilton. There was any time you see Tibetan Canadians start to get active in campus politics, they start to get death threats. Everyone knows this, but no one wants to get on it. I guess the question becomes why. That's a legitimate question. Why don't we get on it? And I don't think it's inertia or laziness. I actually think it's because people in this town are afraid of what happens.

if you start pulling loose threads. You start pulling those threads and you don't really know where it's going to go. Well, first then, I go, are we unique in this? Like, and I don't know if you know the answer this, Tom. Like, is this, when it comes to elections, in my brain I go, you've got to get that right.

That's the, I think probably the most important part of democracy is making sure elections are democratic and that they, you know, that there's no funny business, monkey business in there. So is Canada unique in the fact that we don't really have an oversight of like, this is how it's going to be? Because you talk about, you know, they don't want to do the work. Like, that's a crazy thought. Or is this something that other Western countries are, you know, kind of have the same problem?

I would think that we would probably be on the better side of the scale when it comes to the regulations and rules we have on the books. we have severe limitations on contributions in spending. I mean, it's not even close. When you hear about some of these American political races, federal congressional races, even state races, you can spend $27 million trying to get elected as senator in New Jersey. That just doesn't happen in Canada. If you're spending more than $40, $50, $60,000 in a federal campaign and a riding, everyone starts to pay attention.

We do not have big money in politics. And it's illegal for any business, corporation, foreigner, or union to donate more than very modest sums. It's like $1,500. But the problem is you have to enforce those rules. And this is where we hit the weakness of what is this minor bureaucracy, often led by, forgive me, untalented people, elections Canada. I'll give you an example. S&C Lablan, Quebec Engineering Company, everyone knows about Labelan. They got busted for funneling over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the Liberal Party.

How did they do it? Well, you divvy up the money through employees or agents, and then you compensate them. So it looks like a bunch of contributions from mom and pop to the $1,500 limit, but really, Really, it was one mammoth contribution campaign from one company that was skirting federal law. What did the government do? They pled out a guilty plea to one retired executive who paid a $2,000 fine. Are you kidding me? That was the reaction to enforcement of the laws we already have.

When you ask me, how do we compare to other countries? I would think our regulations are fantastic. I would think our enforcement is abysmal. So is that, you know, I wonder like the old powers that be, people that understand the game you're talking about. Certainly not this small-time podcaster from, you know, middle of nowhere, I mean that tongue-in-cheek, because I love the place I come from.

But, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I think about it and trying to catch up to speed on the way this game is played and how things work and everything else. There's people that understand exactly what they're doing and exactly how the rules will be enforced. And to me, I don't think they want any more oversight. They don't want the rules to be maybe even enforced because that would hinder them. And yet it feels like that's probably the way it should go, Tom. And I just don't know how you get it to that point, especially when the powers would be really don't want that.

Oh, there's no doubt about it that people don't want to rock the boat. But for instance, it doesn't matter the location. It doesn't matter how many people live there. How many election scandals have there been in Saskatchewan? Well, there were some, and they were dealt with. The Saskatchewan, for instance, runs pretty clean elections. When was the last time they had a conviction? They used to.

It was huge scandal. And they dealt with it. But you have to be willing to rock the boat, name names, and let the chips fall where they may. These problems in particular in the, for instance, Chinese-Canadian community are known. They're strong suspicions. This is not cast in a wide geographical area across 338 federal ridings. It's all in basically two metropolitan areas, Vancouver and Toronto. That's it.

Toronto, you're talking 25 seats. This isn't even complicated detective work, but you have to want to do the work. And it's not going to be Elections Canada that says, well, we know there's 100,000 foreigners on the electors list, but I don't feel like taking my boots off the desk to start opening poll bags to find out who they voted for, whether they appeared at polling stations, and whether they elected an ineligible member of parliament. So whose job is it? That's Parliament's job. You say, come on in, boys. we're going to have an elections committee and we're going to meet 52 weeks a year. That's why we have

committees. The finance committee oversees the Department of Finance. I can assure you the finance department staff don't enjoy it. When we have, you know, the committee of industry, they give the Department of Industry a really hard time. But those are the only friends you have if you're an elector in this country. Your friend is not the deputy minister of finance or the assistant deputy minister of industry. It's the MPs you have on those committees. They're the only ones who will presumably look out for you. That's why we need oversight of elections. Are we going to get an elections committee? Well, I'm with you. You say, well, why not? Whose feelings are going to be hurt, except feelings that should be heard, in particular at Elections Canada, if they're not getting the job done.

I agree with you. You know, you mentioned people don't want to rock the boat. I'm curious here in Alberta, obviously Premier Daniel Smith has been, I don't know if it's called rocking the boat or sending one right into the side. Anyways, she's doing some different things here, you know, just over the course of the past, I don't know if it's week, 10 days, somewhere in that. that time frame, Tom, she's let go Hinshaw, right, Chief Medical Officer here. And then, of course, the entire AHS board now is gone. You know, we just saw what the Chief Medical Officer in Ontario said, you know, wear masks, struggling and recommend it. And then seen at a party with no mask, it's just like hypocrisy at its finest. Either way, I'm curious, what out east, is there talk

of Daniel Smith and what she's doing? Are people for it against it? I don't know. Maybe it doesn't Does it make it that? Like her shockwaves of what she's doing. Has it reached the public out in your neck of the woods? Well, the problem is they're relying on a lot of, you know, fairly mainstream media for interpretation of that. So that's going to be a problem. I have to say, though, having lived in these provinces, I'll tell you something interesting about Ontario. And this is my deep insight into Ontario electors.

they see themselves as the sort of at the head of the table at Thanksgiving. They sort of cast themselves in that role. You know, former Upper Canada, birthplace of the Confederation, etc. They see themselves as surrounded by crazies. So we have separatists in Quebec, and we have what we're led to believe are gun-toting freedom convoyers from the prairies. So someone has to keep all of this together, and that's sort of this sticky of Ontario. Having said that, Ontario is, you know, it is what almost 14 million people, and it does cover a range. I can assure you that there are people in Ontario who are just

as fed up with the mandates as people who don't live in this province. There was a group of federal employees that litigated the vaccine mandates. So there is, Ontario's not monolithic. I think there's a range of political opinion. But in terms of, you know, a closely following, I don't think they would closely follow Premier of Alberta any more than most Albertans would closely follow Premier of Ontario, you get this sort of the gist of it. But like, unfortunately, much of that comes, as I say, from mainstream media who do not even have bureaus in Alberta anymore. So I guess I take that as, you know, sitting here in Alberta, it's, you know, as a guy who once upon a time never followed politics and now is paying close attention. I've had Premier Smith

before she was Premier, I might add, still working on that. And to the listener, we'll get her done. but she was on the show multiple times in her campaign to become it and then obviously before that as well. So in my eyes, what she's doing is like, oh, wow, I haven't heard an elected official do or say these type of things, especially in the last two years or going on three, I guess Tom. But as far as it resonating further across the country, yeah, I could just go back to where I was probably five, six years ago where I didn't, I didn't even, you know, pay attention to the premier of my province, let alone anyone else across. the country. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, we discussed this last time we spoke, and it's really true that Canada, the

federations comprised of 10 really distinct societies. Alberta is absolutely unique. Why? Well, number one, second only to, I think Saskatchewan, and they may, on a raw count, they may exceed it. The name of province that has produced more independent-minded political parties succeeded or failed. I mean, there's a long, long list. When I cover the Alberta legislature, first time I went up, that was around 1985,

there was five parties in the legislature, conservative majority with five parties, including some parties that don't exist anymore. The other thing is the demographics of Alberta are absolutely unique. This, of course, affects your politics. Edmonton, I know it's not what it used to be, but for the longest time was post-war, Ukrainian-Canadian immigrants, I used to live in Stucco City, who made it. We finally made them. These were first generation.

Their parents came over here with nothing. Toughest people on Earth, that was North Central Alberta. They set the character, Southern Alberta, largest American expatriate population on planet Earth. That affects your worldview. It really does. And so Alberta, of course, has always been distinct, even distinct from Saskatchewan or Manitoba, where I grew up, not even close, let alone southern Ontario. You and I talked about that. That, of course, affects your worldview.

If it affects your worldview, it's going to affect your politics. We always say Alberta was this place where they were going to get it done. It didn't matter if they were good ideas, Western Canada concept, right? There's a long list of these parties. It didn't matter if they were good ideas. The important part was they had ideas and they were going to get it done. Unique, in my opinion, amongst a lot of electors in the country, they would rather do without than do according to others.

You don't find that in New Brunswick. New Brunswick, you are a liberal or conservative. It goes back to your grandparents. but the main thing is to get the highway contract. Alberta would say, you know what, we don't want the road paved. The main thing is we're not going to get that road paved from you. That's Alberta. You know, I've been wrestling with this.

It's a rather large question because I don't have the answer. And certainly, in majority of my life, I certainly, as I've stated here, did not pay attention to politics. And actually, I would argue that it's almost, well, it is a taboo subject. There's two of them, in my opinion, politics and religion. You don't talk about either because, you know, whatever, it ruffles feathers. I'm not exactly sure, Tom. But you've been covering the beat, so to speak, for a long time. Is there a way to make politics more palatable to people to where they want to come in

and understand what their country is doing, become involved in it? Or is that just age and certain life choices that eventually just you can't escape it? I think it's about paying taxes. I think there's nothing like paying taxes to focus the mind. There's always been this movement to lower the voting age. The 16, last lowered in 1970 from 21 to 18. Every parliament there's a bill. every time the bill fails, it always comes back. Lower it to 16. And the advocates say, well,

this will encourage participation, lifelong interest in political events and public affairs, starting at in high school. And there's some of us who say, no, it's yeah, it's funny. You know what? It's not a sock hop. Really politics is about deciding how they spend the money. And if you are not a net contributor, and if you do not know the blood, blood, sweat, and tears, that involves filling out your T1 form the April. Then you don't really get the, nothing focuses the mind about how the school board is run is when you have children in school. Nothing gives you a keener interest in public affairs than when you get to pay for it,

30, 40, 50% of gross income. That always focuses the mind. And I don't think that will ever change. You raise an interesting point, though. don't talk about politics or religion. Remember someone saying about the difference between Americans and Canadians? It was an open-ended question. If you were attending a party, say, you're having supper, you're having some people over to suffer and you're invited.

And you didn't know the people in the room, whether they were American or Canadian. How would you tell the difference? It's a good question. Mine has always been Canadians don't talk about politics. There's a reason for that. We got five parties in the legislature in the old days. We got how many. We got five functioning parties in the House of Commons.

You can't tell by looking at somebody or how they're dressed or what their vehicle is, how they voted. You have no idea whether you're across the table from a social creditor or a New Democrat, conservative, liberal, green, block. You name it, just by looking at them. Not the same thing in the States. Blue team, red team, we always say, Sean, if there's only two teams in the league, that means no one has to be very good because they still have a 50% chance who win in the Stanley Cup. Imagine that. It doesn't work that way in this country.

And I think that's why we have that casual and, frankly, understated approach to politics. You don't want to be shooting your mouth off because you don't know who's sitting in the next row. and there's nothing wrong with that. But for sure, you know, when you start paying for it, you always say, Sean, we always say, whenever people say it's not about the money, we've never said that. It's always about the money.

And yeah, I come from, you know, obviously a working background, family members who run businesses, I run a business now. Like, to me, when you see such ineptitude and how the money is spent, and by my eyes how much corruption is in how the money is spent. I don't get it. I don't get why more people don't pay attention,

but maybe it comes back to everything you just said. I look at it and I go, does it get worse from here, Tom? Or is there ways in which it will get better moving forward? Because, I mean, like the amount of money just seeping through the cracks into wherever it's going is unbelievable. Like I have no other word for it. It's a lot of money.

There's no doubt about it. Yeah, it gets better. It's always quite painful, though. And that's why people, old-timers, when they start to see, for instance, the deficit spending, and some of the deficit spending is absolutely spectacular federally. They get nervous because everyone knows what's coming. I mean, I remember 1981. I remember paying off a 22% loan to the Royal Bank on Rosser Avenue, Brandon, Manitoba.

And they never even said, thank you. To this day, I remember that making that. last payment. And you never forget that. Anyone who was around in 1995 in this town remembers the budget that year, fired 45,000 federal employees, privatized Canadian national railways, closed 73 federal agencies, cut foreign aid 21%. That was a liberal finance minister, Paul Martin. That's your future. There's no magic. So it does get better. And they cut and cut and cut and cut and they raised taxes too. And we did have about nine years where the surplus budgets, which hadn't happened since the 1950s. So I guess the question becomes for me, how come

everyone forgets? Like, why do you keep back into that ditch? But I guess it's just human nature. It's incremental, two steps back, three steps forward. It's, it's not pretty, but we do move forward. I mean, we did get out of the cave. So, no, tomorrow's always a brighter day, but this one's going to be painful. Oh, the deficits are absolutely staggering. Yeah, you talk about the human. I just look at my life. I, I, to me, at 18, Tom couldn't that told me jack squat i thought i had all the answers uh i mean and certainly by 25 i thought i had all the answers it took until my 30s to realize i don't know shit i'm so far away from having all the answers and if you think about that like um it doesn't we we don't you know i always bring up first nations

when i think about leadership because uh read some books on um um uh big bear and and a couple of different key figures back, you know, in Western Canadian history. And the thing that always stood out to me, Tom, was in peacetime they had, they had, the elder was the leader, right? They had somebody who was wise and understood, you know, the many different facets of society. They'd seen a lot of things. But in war time, they had the young leader who was motivated and, you know, could get out there and fight, I assume, you know. And I just think of our culture. We're not, we're not quite like that, you know? And at times, we really struggle with being told. some probably knowledgeable things.

Maybe that's just my life, but that's certainly been, you know, my hesitation in younger years to listen to wise counsel, I would say. There's no doubt about it. And, of course, if nagging worked, no one would smoke and drink. So we, I mean, we come to our own conclusion. I remember an old-timey Alberta newspaper,

Lots of people remember him, Ted Byfield. Remember him one talking one time. He was talking about McKenzie King, former prime minister. This is the guy who famously talked to his dead mom with a Ouija board, had a very complicated relationship with his dogs, kind of a lonely, crazy bachelor. And Byfield, of all people, who is, I think, fairly well known as a conservative person. said there was something about McKenzie King.

And the thing was he kept it all together. If you accept Canada as a complicated country, and I think we are, and it's a big country with very diverse people who would really should be at each other's throats half the time. Kim Campbell, not a person I quote often, Sean, used to say there's lots of buttons to push in this country, so don't go around pushing buttons if you're in a leadership position. I think some cabinets have forgotten that. It's good advice. That is good advice. But if you see that it's, if you see that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

is that it worked. And it's worked. And it's worked all these years. And that's very confidence inspiring. That means people will always find a way. But there's no doubt about it. You go through long, bleak periods. And I don't think it's great right now where people are sort of at each other's throats. And it's obvious that the leadership is not on. And no one can really see where it's going to end. But I don't know how you can be Canadian and not be confident about the future. I understand moments of despair and concern. But the whole story is confident. It doesn't make any sense otherwise. Why would, why would we live here? Is it because we like paying heating bills? Why? The sun, the sun is going down. 3.50 in the afternoon. It doesn't. It's like living on

Pluto. Yeah, there's more to it than that. That's for sure. Well, with a couple minutes left before I let you off here, I should ask you finally then about the Emergency Act Commission, been going on. I believe as we record this, it's day 27 of testimonies. And I'm curious, you know, over the, since we last talked, it's been about two weeks since then, Tom. Has anything caught your eye, caught your ear that you really, you know, have written down, talked about, et cetera, that, that's been going on there as they continue their, their interviews and testimonies? I think it's a disastrous for cabinet.

I do. I think it's a widow maker. I think it's legacy material. I don't think this cabinet will ever get over it. And I think some people will get fired. I think it's absolutely a calamity. As weak as the federal case was in declaring a national emergency, it's been proven weaker still by internal records and documents that we've seen.

That to me has been the great value of the commission. As you finally get to see documents, it would take years to get this to access. information, and they are damning, Sean. It is not a confidence builder. The other thing that strikes me is anyone who reads these documents can see that this was political score settling. That's very far-reaching and dangerous. And so I think the question for me, just my two cents, is this judge going to be sufficiently outraged in his ruling and to come up with a condemnation, that is so withering that every future cabinet will say, don't touch hot. Don't reach for that hammer, even if you have political dissenters who are getting on your nerves with the honking and whatever.

Because that's what this was about. There were precedent set when cabinet did this that are so far reaching and dangerous. And it's funny that some of their friends don't see it. They don't see that you can have a labor minister down the road who will say, oh, you know what? I see Greenpeace's petitioning and blocking a pipeline project. I think I'm just going to freeze their bank accounts. I'm going to fix their wagon real good.

Can you imagine a future cabinet down the road saying, I see their striking at the mill again? I think I'm just going to bust that union down and start, seizing their accounts because they're getting on my nerves. I say economic harm. That's what Cabinet said about Freedom Convoy. Economic harm. We have to put a stop to that. And I hope the judge does. But I think that, I think it's that raw. That's my two-cent shot. Well, Tom, I appreciate you giving me some time again today. And I'm going to get you out of here on time. Every time I sit down with you, though, although it's only been twice, has been very

thought-provoking and I appreciate you once again give me some time and I look forward to our next chat when you hop back on all my pleasure shot anytime