Shaun Newman Podcast - #459 - Kris Sims

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Kris is the Alberta director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We discuss the 2nd Carbon tax that was implemented on July 1st and the landscape of media under Bill C-18. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast Patreon: www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

This is John Vervakey. This is Simon Esler. Hi, it's Heather Prozac. This is Tom Romago. This is Alex Kraner. This is Steve Kirsch. This is Dr. Pierre Corey, and you are listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Monday. Hope everybody's weekend, Canada, a long weekend is going well. You're probably at the lake still on your way back, maybe. Either way. I hope you're enjoying it with some family, friends, and enjoying some time together. Today, we got, we got, well, Chris Sims never disappoints. Anyways, before we get to her, let's talk about the episode sponsors. Canadians for Truth, of course, they've been doing live shows.

They've had on different people, you know, just recently, Sarah Palin, before that, Shadow Davis, before that Tamara Leach, and on and on, and on. They got their three shows that you can go to CanadiansforTruth.C.A. and C.W.A. and C.O. Patriot Warrior with Theo Flurry or Unstoppable Truth with Jamie Sale. Jamie Saleh. Just had Sean Oliver on. That's Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone's son. out of Hollywood on, Patriot Warrior, you know, you got Theo talking wokeism, Agenda 2030, or, Agenda 2030?

Why does that sound like I'm saying that wrong, folks? Well, welcome to Monday where Sean can't remember what he's trying to spit out. Is it, is it, Agenda 2030? What did I say? Anyway, I don't know. Welcome to Monday, you know. It's, this is where we make mistakes and we just keep going, folks. Anyways, go to Canadiensfortruth.ca.

You can see all the different shows. I was going to say Patriot Warrior had this guy named Tucker Carlson on it once upon a time. So if that's of interest to you, head on over to CanadiensforTruth.ca. I'm waiting to see who they bring in next for their fire and ice shows. They've been kind of in Calgary and all over the provinces doing their live shows. So either way, that's Canadians for Truth. Go to Cananians for Truth. dot CA.

Next up, Prophet River Clay Smiling and the team over there. They specialize in importing firearms in the United States of America and pride themselves on making this process

as easy as possible for all their customers. I admire them because, I mean, with the ever-changing landscape of that industry, man, they got to stay on top of it, don't they?

And if you're into, you know, firearms and hunting and different things like that, you better to have a team that knows what they're talking about. Certainly, the team of a Profit River

stays up to date with everything that's ever changing and they are the major retailer firearms optics accessory serving all of Canada all you got to do is go to Profitriver.com if you're like yeah you know you know whatever well maybe you got that hunter or sportsman in your life

and you're like yeah I can use something interesting to give them as a gift card or a gift card as a present you have birthdays and different things coming up while you can get gift cards not anyways It's a Monday, hey? Like a Monday of a long weekend.

I can't spit things out today. Anyways, you can get to go to Profitriver.com. I'm like, can I just press the easy, can I just fast? Yeah, screw-ups keep coming. What are you going to do? If you're looking to get something for that special someone in your life, you can go to

Profitriver.com and pick up a gift card, and then, of course, they serve all of Canada, and they are the major retailers, firearms, optics, accessories. I feel like I'm just, spinning my tires this morning, you know? Well, happy July long, everyone, from this side where we can't spit anything out.

Tyson and Tracy Mitchell with Mitchco Environmental. They're looking for equipment operators, farming experience is a bonus, also looking for laborers, seasonal or full time. They're hiring, and if interested, reach out via, well, phone or you can go to their website, phone number 780-214, 4,0004, or go to Mitchco Corp. dot C.A. Finally, Carly Clause and the team

over at Windsor Plywood, they're builders of the podcast studio table, and, you know, it's funny, when you have kids, I don't know, tons of people went to the lake, but some of us stay back and get projects done,

and I think, uh, uh, you, Windsor Plywood, this must be a busy time right now, you know, with everything wood coming from, uh,

you know, those folks, you know, whether we're talking mantles, decks, windows, doors, sheds, podcast studio tables. I feel like they've got to be busy on, you know, people getting projects done and being in the backyard and, you know, getting things looking the way they want to.

Anyways, that's my thoughts. I hope everybody's driving safe, had a safe weekend. I want to bring up one more time the, well, not one more time. I'm focusing on it here for the next six months. My Patreon account, we're going to get this thing rolling again. I've shared this a couple times with Tom Longo being here. He was like, you've got to stop, you know, where? about it, some of the things of Patreon, he's like, you should really try. So we're going to try again.

So Patreon is in the show notes. If you're wanting to support the podcast, you can certainly do that. If not, no biggie. And look forward to talking and sharing some text with all you fine listeners on not only today's show, but your thoughts and moving forward. So let's get on to 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, methanol and chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial or oil field locations. For more information, visit them at Hancockpetroleum.ca. She's the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I'm talking about Chris Sims. So buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast. I'm sitting with the lovely Chris Sims. Thanks for coming back on. Thanks for having me back on. Now, by the time this drops, you know, we record a, we record, and then obviously listeners know we drop it a couple days after. So in between us talking and July 1st, we're getting hit with another carbon tax.

And so before we get there, I might as to do this. How's Chris doing this morning? Can we have a little bit of smiles before the truth bombs start getting dropped on us everywhere? I love it. I'm doing great. My family's been here for a year now in beautiful Lethbridge, Alberta. It's a great place to live. And I've actually been able to start going to some rodeos again and hanging out with my rodeo cousins on the Scott side.

So it's really good to see. I absolutely love Alberta. Why did you pick? I don't want to get too deep in your personal stuff, but why Lethbridge? Great question. We just picked it almost by accident. We didn't have any family here. So about a year and a half ago, I was driving the debt clock, like this big honkin truck.

It's like a massive U-Haul truck, and it has a display, a video display, of the national debt on it, because that's what you do when you were with the CTF. And so we drove it actually through the spring blizzards through the mountains. And I landed here in Lethbridge, because that's where my dear friend and the federal director of the CTF, Franco Tarazano, his mom lives here. So we landed here and did, you know, a bit of media. And then he was going to take a couple days of downtime. And my daughter and I got a chance to drive around, fell in love with Lethbridge. It's not too big. It's not too small.

It's got a university. It's got a trade school. I can see the mountains if I still squint. It's on the ancient number three crow's-nest pass highway, which is one of the most, the oldest transit routes for human beings in North America. So it's pretty cool. So I'm a huge believer in Lethbridge and we just picked it and we're really, really happy with it. We moved to Alberta for many reasons.

I do have some cousins up near Stettler and Sundry in that, so that was good. And we don't like big bossy government like at all. And it was going to way. So you came to Alberta where we're all ornery and we're all like get up. out of our way. Yeah, and I love that. That's exactly my style. And so, now, granted, rural outside the lower mainland, BC, is actually culturally very similar to Alberta. But it's just so expensive. You just can't afford life there. And so we were super thankful to be able to get out here to Alberta. Well, talking about affording life, July 1st, you know,

like a second carbon tax. What the deuce. I know, right? So it's funny we just mentioned BC. because as anybody knows who's driven from Alberta out to BC, you look up at the gas pump and you're like, holy crap, what was that? Why did it suddenly jump like 20 cents, more than 20 cents? Well, that's because British Columbia has a second carbon tax. They have had a second carbon tax in BC now for years. It's around 16 cents extra per liter of gasoline and around 17 or 19 cents extra per liter for diesel. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a look at what BC is doing and said, huh, that's really cool. I'm going to do that to the rest of Canada. Like literally. So as of July 1st, as of Canada Day,

we are now going to have a second carbon tax layered on top of the first one. Now, we don't know how much it's going to cost right out of the shoots. We have to wait and see because it's a really complicated system, the way this second carbon tax works. But eventually, within the next seven years, Sean, it's going to cost the same as BC. It's going to be around 17 cents a liter extra for gas, around 19 cents extra for a liter for diesel.

Now, when you say 17, 19 cents, is that including the first carbon tax? Or you're saying that's on top of the carbon tax? That's on top of the carbon tax. Imagine it like a layer cake from hell. And so it's just slapped on top. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I've just, you know, do they understand that people are struggling right now? Do they care? I guess they just don't care.

So that's it. I really like that question because it gets down to the nitty-gritty and it gets past the numbers. So one more quick thing on numbers. Sure. By 2030. So blink, you and I know we're around the same age. Blink, blink in seven years is gone. So within the next seven years, Alberta families are going to be paying close to $4,000. extra in these two carbon taxes without with the rebates factored it that that's that yeah yeah that's net okay so let's get to the why to be blunt the folks who are crafting these carbon tax plans in ottawa want fuel to be unaffordable so every time you see a politician putting his hands up in the air and saying oh whoa look at how expensive this is and the rebates must help this that's not true okay

This is a feature, not a bug. They want you to not be able to afford gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and propane. Okay? The thinking is, in theory, their little economics textbook thing, is that if you make something more expensive, the herd will move away from it and pick something else. The problem here is there's no something else. For the vast majority of us, we do not have a... access to affordable, abundant, dependent, alternative energy sources. This is not like pick-in

between the expensive single-use plastic bag or remembering to bring your own bag from home. Okay? That, as much as it's annoying, that you can switch to. There's no switch here. Okay? The problem is, is they don't seem to care. Like, this has been pointed out to them many times, saying, you are making life unaffordable by doing this, and you've punished people, you've got them back, into a corner and you're not letting them out and they just blink at you there's been no response to that element okay then give me the numbers then give me the numbers over the next seven years all over again let's let's hear because uh i think uh i said this uh somebody asked but you know what do you got going on today i'm like oh i got chris sims coming in this one's going to hurt a

little bit you know because this you have a way of just like getting right to it not talking like a politician where you don't actually give any answers, it's like, this is what's coming between here and 2030. Yeah. So as of right now, in most of the, most of Canada, I'll put it this way. So Quebec has its own little deal where it gets a slight discount. British Columbia has had its own carbon tax that they're absolutely in love with and two of them for years. So let's talk about all the other provinces other than those two. As of right now, the first mandatory minimum carbon tax, the one we've all been paying, costs 14 cents a liter of gasoline and 17 cents a liter of diesel. What that means in normal people talk is that it costs you around 15 bucks extra every time you're filling up a light duty pickup truck.

I'm not talking the heavy duty dulys or anything. Light duty pickup truck costs you more than 15 bucks extra every single time. If you're driving a big rig, like a trucker, that's delivering all of the stuff we need to eat, that's costing him or her like $160 extra just in that first carbon tax. Now, that first carbon tax cost is going to triple within the next seven years. So that 140 is going to be what, that you're saying $420. Yeah, rather than that, yeah. Roughly. Yeah, and easy. And to the listener, where do you think the truckers are going to pass that cost onto?

It all goes down back to the consumer, man. This is, and even right now, it's so expensive. Because if you increase the price of diesel, diesel as of right now is our motive power. It's the lifeblood that moves stuff, okay? Locomotives use it. Like a lot of people forget that, that trains don't just magically run. on steam. They use diesel, almost all of them, and they pay the carbon tax. And it's like $2,400 extra just in the first carbon tax to fill up one of those locomotives. So triple all these,

triple that one. That's the first carbon tax. The second carbon tax is going to be layered on top of that. And by 2030, it's going to cost roughly the same amount. So here, so the parliamentary, the parliamentary, but I know, I know. People need to know it. Before we go past that, Roughly the same. So you're saying, I'm just going to stick with a trucker. Because if you understand how our goods and services move across Canada, heck, North America, what you're saying is in Canada, roughly $420 by 2030 extra in fuel. And then add on to that essentially, let's just go a little shy.

Let's say an extra $3.80. You're saying an extra $800 a fill up. So, yeah, well, I would say that let's say four, let's say four. something for the first one because that's tripling it. Okay. And then take the second carbon tax at the current rate and then add it. So I'd say about 600 bucks extra every time. That's not including home heating. Okay. So here, here, parliamentary budget officer. I know, dude. I know. This is it. This people start going, what? How could they do this? Well, they are. And we got to say so. So the parliamentary budget office, okay, is an independent government watchdog for budgets, okay? It's not us,

it's a separate group, okay? It is like an officer of parliament. It's a function of parliament. They did the math on this, okay? With rebates factored in, the average Alberta family is going to be paying out around $3,800 more by 2030. And now they've factored in home heating, extra fuel costs for groceries, all that stuff. So you're out almost $4,000 within the next seven years with the two combined carbon taxes. That's the best way to look at it.

Yeah, and that's probably, yeah. Okay, well, then my next question goes two and I asked you that you shot you this in a text. He's like, okay, I sit there, I hear that. I'm sure every listener hears that and goes, this is getting a bit insane. You know, to pay a little extra in gas, okay, not a big deal, right? And then you start to see everything and start to add up in different things and products and services and you're like, okay, this isn't just a little and extra fuel, right? This is getting passed all the way down and everything else and it's only going higher and higher and higher. Now we've got a second one and yada, yada, y'all. It's like,

how do we get rid of it? Chris, how do we get rid of this? We either change. We either change the mind of government or we change the government. So we changed the government. We're not changing the mind of anything in this government. Well, it's one of those things, right? So the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we are nonpartisan. We don't care what color jersey you're wearing. Just stop screwing over taxpayers. Okay? That's our thing. To give you an idea, you know, we gave the former liberal prime minister, Paul Martin, the tax fighter award because he slayed the deficit. it. Good job. So we don't care he was wearing a red jersey at the time. As of right now, yeah,

it's pretty hard to get through to the Trudeau government. They're not interested in listening to this. It's as if they don't think that Bill exists for people. You just had King Charles hit the, I don't know if you saw that video of the countdown to 2030 because that's, that's, you know, doomsday if we don't change what's going on in the world. I'm talking to specific. difficulty to climb it and I'm not trying to pull Chris into that discussion if she doesn't want to go there. I'm just pointing out they all look at 2030 as if we don't hit a certain magical thing there, the world ends, which, listen, in my lifetime, we've lived through, I don't know how many doomsday clocks. They all come and go. Yeah, they do. And at the end of the day, it's like, I can't live

in this, you know, so you look around, you go, okay, so we're going to tax us into high heaven till 2030, which is going to ruin a ton of people's lives. It just is. Yeah, it is. It's going to drive people and, okay, I'll be point. A lot of people are already in energy poverty, man. Yeah. And what that means is they can't afford food and fuel and housing and all that stuff.

There's a reason why we have record demand for food banks in Canada now. I just got, I'm not going to cry. I got a phone call earlier this week. Some guy from Calgary, real upset. He said, I don't have any food. Like, I'm out. So people, I don't know, they see me on TV and on your shows and stuff and like they think I'm the government lady and can help.

Yeah. And he was out of food. And I said, well, buddy, are you in Calgary? He's like, yeah. I said, well, did you go to the food bank? He's like, yeah. And I guess he must have gone to one of the satellite areas that didn't have one. So I phone the food bank, like coming in hot, right?

And the lady picks up and she's at the warehouse. And she said, no, no, we've got a lot of supplies here and we'll deliver him a hamper. and she was going to help. God bless her. But I talked to her for a bit. And she said, yeah, we're seeing record demand. We can't give people as much as we think they need now because things are so tight. That is because of inflation and because they are taxing the heck of a diesel, okay, which moves everything. And they have to answer for it. And so you're right. They're going to just tax the stuffing out of people up until when? 2030. What happens then? something magical.

And even if you wanted to get into the emissions thing, the carbon taxes in Canada do not affect global emissions. I'm going to say that again real slow. The carbon taxes in Canada do not reduce global emissions. Who said that? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that, en Francais, on the very famous Toul-en-Paul talk show out of Quebec back in 2018, if I'm correct?

He basically said, you know what, even if we stopped everything tomorrow, meaning shot everything down and go die in a cave. It wouldn't make a big impact. The parliamentary budget officer said the same thing, saying, our emissions are not substantial enough to make a dent in this thing. So let's say for argument's sake, Sean, that you wake up at night worried about emissions. That's your biggest thing. Global emissions, like, keeps you up.

nothing we're doing right now is going to fix that. If you really wanted to fix the global emissions thing, you would tackle the big end of the arithmetic problem. And that's a place like India, where hundreds of millions of people are burning wood and animal dung every day to cook their food and heat their home. Guess what they're asking to buy from us? LNG.

That's correct, which is way cleaner burning. You sound way too common sense. Chris, for me, I don't know if I like this. Right? Right? Like, I mean, it just sounds way too calm of sense. Oh, man. Did they have uniforms yet?

I don't know. I love having you on because it's just like, it's just so crystal clear. It's just like, this is where we're heading. The only way we're getting off this train at this point is if there's a change in government. Because you have to get enough people, because like at this point, the liberals seem hell-bent on. They're going to go their way no matter what. and they're not going to listen to anyone. And I'm not sitting here.

When you say the nonpartisan thing, I'm like, yeah, I agree. At this point, it's like somebody just get us off this, like, just stop. We could just literally stop. Yeah. Instead they're not. So let's talk about Nova Scotia then, because this has been the biggest thing I've seen off of the taxpayer federation. Just like everything I've seen from what's going on has been that Nova Scotia is going

to get the largest tax hike in Canadian history. How is that possible? How, like, are they not getting a carbon tax at this point? like what am I missing here? Great question. So as of, you know, leading up to Canada Day, they were actually on a much

lower form of carbon tax. So for whatever reason, the Atlantic region had been able to negotiate a deal where they had a form of cap and trade system. What that means is that industry paid a certain amount

and then the government helped and blah, blah, blah. That is large... Chris, aren't we all in this together? Aren't we all getting carbon tax all equal, aren't we, you know, what's the difference between an Albertan to Saskatchewan, Ontario, to Quebec?

If the planet is really dying and carbon tax is the only thing that's going to save us, why are their deals being made? It's because this isn't about the planet, it's about politics. Carry on. So, up until now, the Atlantic region had had a special deal

in the form of cap and trade. Now, on paper, the reason for that is because they still largely relied a lot on coal and heavier fuels for their power and their home heating. Okay. Now, their electricity prices have gone up a lot because they're switching off a coal, but a lot of folks in, because I have folks from there, right?

A lot of folks, especially in the rural areas of Atlantic Canada, still use furnace oil as their main supplier of heat. And if you get way out in the bush, they're still using, like propane, right? They get those big 100-pound tanks, right, to fill them up. And so they said, hey, we can't do this so fast, give us more lead time. And so the federal government did until now. So now their carbon tax at the pump is going to jump from two cents a liter to 14 cents a liter overnight. So all those folks driving their minivans around Dartmouth and Yarmouth and that, 10 bucks. Boom. You go to fill up after Canada Day. It's going to cost you

10 bucks extra to fill up that minivan with your kids every time. Now, people who would sniff at the idea of 10 bucks every time, that's a roast chicken. I can buy roast chicken for 10 bucks at the grocery store. For now. For now. Yeah. Hey, I'm a pretty careful shopper. So I can find them for 10 bucks still. And I can feed family off of that and then make soup. You're taking that away from them every single time. And now just imagine once they hit winter. Like they're going to for de, so light fuel oil is what diesel is listed as under the federal government. That's 17 cents extra per liter. That's going to be costing people over $400 extra now with the rebates factored in per family in Nova Scotia. Boom. So that's why it's the highest and quickest carbon tax hike in Canadian history. And it's

it's nailing folks in Nova Scotia. And what's interesting is that the Trudeau government has got a lot of seats there. Right. And up until now, they haven't made a dent, right? No other party has really been able to make inroads there since 2015. Curious to see if a $400 increase to your expenses per year, courtesy of the Trudeau government is going to change that. And it might, because it's interesting, because even provincial liberal governments under the label are pushing back on Trudeau openly with their face. They're doing ads about it on the radio. So all is not copacetic in Atlantic Canada right now. Yeah, that's, you know, it's interesting to me because I just feel like we're all feeling the sting.

But when you guys started talking about Nova Scotia, I'm like, oh, that's interesting, right? Like you just, I mean, you just assume that, you know, it's just a blanket here. it is. This is what it is, but it's not. It's just not. No, it's just not. Because again, politics is people, right? And it's people making up these policies. And so up until now, they've had

a special cap and trade. It's based, you know that, it's one of my favorite scenes in Die Hard, where McLean leans out the window and yells, welcome to the party, pal. Well, welcome to the party, pal. Great reference. Great reference. So here in Alberta, and I sit, you know, obviously I sit in Lloyd, so I'm Alberta slash Saskatchewan.

You know, you mentioned Quebec has made their own deal. Nova Scotia, obviously up until this point, had their own. Like, is there anything that Premier Daniel Smith can just be like, no, we're not doing this? Can provinces do that? Or this is not how that's going to work? So she's going to. So I've known her, you know, just professionally speaking, because we were both in radio and sort of thing for a long time. And just like knowing her style in what she thinks,

she'll, I think, will do all she can to fight Trudeau on all this stuff because it just rankles her, I think, as a person. Now, professionally speaking, as a premier, she's actually done a lot so far. She has fully suspended the Alberta fuel tax. So what that is, is, you know, depending on where you are in Canada, every time you're filling up with gas or diesel, what's coming out of that pump isn't just your direct money costing for the fuel. It's a whole bunch of government taxes. In Alberta, we have no provincial taxes. All of the taxes you're paying at the pump are imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal government. Why she did that is to offset the cost of the carbon tax. And it almost does at the pump. It doesn't touch home heating, unfortunately. I don't know what

she can do about that one. But at the pump, it saves you 13 cents a liter of gasoline and diesel every single time. So that almost eclipses the cost of the carbon tax at the pump, the first one. And I just saw something come across the Herald this morning. I haven't had a chance to open it, but the headline was Smith plans to fight second carbon tax too. So that's really good to hear. I'm not sure what cards she has left in her deck in order to fight back against Trudeau on that specific one. But as of right now, that's why. And also, I sure hope this doesn't get out. But technically, under the regulations federally, you're not supposed to offset the cost of the carbon tax.

Because Trudeau wants you to feel it as bad as possible. So for the province to turn around and say, you know what, no provincial tax. That's interesting. I'm curious how that lines up with what we are allowed to do out here by Ottawa. And what we're asking her to do is to go one step further. So say you can fast forward to a time where either Prime Minister Trudeau wakes up tomorrow morning and has that moment of realization and says, huh, I've been wrong this whole time.

Scrap both carbon taxes. We can dream. That could happen. When pigs fly. Yeah. Or the next prime minister keeps to a promise and scraps both carbon taxes. Say that has happened. They're gone.

What would prevent the carbon tax from flying home to roost with its bulture flapping wings here in Alberta as a provincial tax? Because we've had a provincial carbon tax here before under Premier Rachel Notley. What would shield us from that? We want Smith to do that. want her to take the carbon tax and stick it in the taxpayer protection act, which is a really strong law here in Alberta. It's why we don't have a PST. So if she puts in and no carbon tax in the taxpayer protection act, Sean, we would have to have a referendum to get it, which means we'd never get it. Like, good luck. Yeah, good luck. That's called kryptonite. Yeah.

Yeah, it's one of the things I appreciate out of what your organization does. It really, I don't know, you get emails, I get an email, I'm sure you do too. You get emails from all these different people, and some just like, they talk too long and they don't get, like, it's just like, give me the story. What is it? One of the things about your emails, Chris, is it's like, here it is, boom, boom, boom, ball paragraph, boom, boom. You're like, interesting. And yeah, you bring up a lot of good points with what the Alberta government's doing and, you know, and why, you know, if we ever wanted to get, say, a provincial sales tax, like, well, it's got to go through a referendum.

Well, who's going to vote for that? I mean, honestly, that's awesome because I don't want to vote for that. I don't want anything to do with that. That's one of the Alberta advantages is coming here and not having to worry about that, right? That's correct. And that's why we fight for that stuff. So we first started fighting for like a taxpayer protection act back in like the early 90s. Like new kids on the block were topping the charts back when we were saying we need these protections.

Is that Marky Marky? No, that's Donnie Wahlberg. Donnie Walberg. That's the Mark's older brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My most personal friend, we text. Yeah. What?

I know. That's a whole other story and your listeners don't care. You're a good guy, by the way. You're kidding. You're not kidding. I'm not kidding. No. You and Donnie Wahlberg, uh,

chat. We DM, yeah. That's funny. Hey, straight up, he's a good guy. He's been on Blue Bloods forever. He was in Band of Brothers there. There, your listeners probably watch Band of Brothers. Yeah, yeah. Who didn't? Yeah, anyways. Anyway, long, long story. Hey, man, I'm a, I'm a child of the 80s and I'm a girl, so I was into it. But no, good guy. The thing here, though, is that, yeah, that is why we've been fighting for this stuff all this time, because governments will come and go, right parties will come and go leadership will come and go promises will be broken but if we bake in rules like this then they can't then then the next government's held to account essentially right correct and if they don't which they can they can rip up the law whatever good luck you know they did

that back in manitoba um they said you know what we're going to break the balanced budget law we're going to increase the pst and all hell broke loose and we chased the premier of the province down the street in a Pinocchio costume. Because we have one. We have two mascots. We have Porky the Waste Haters, this big pig in like a tuxedo. And then we have this guy named Fibber who might bear a resemblance to the Italian folktale. Pinocchio. Yeah. I didn't know that part. Yeah. That's, that's excellent. That is excellent. I tell you what, me and twos are going to bring that up here in the coming weeks on the mashup, Pinocchio. Or Fibber, I guess. Fibbibb.

Fibber, well, this is the thing. It's the Patch Adams thing, like getting back to your point earlier, where it gets depressing. This stuff does get depressing. So you have to have some fun with it. So that's why we do the dress up and stuff. Humor is so powerful, right? Like humor breaks is just like one of those things. You know, this is, I haven't talked about this a long time, but like I'm, I've got to go back to probably January. We're talking, how do you bring people together? Because there's a lot of like mixed emotions about a whole bunch of different issues. And it's very, you know, like, people are at each other. And so, you know, Daryl Sutter had the thing. You bring people together through music, religion, or no, music, church, and sports, essentially. That's the three he said. And anyways, and then we got talking about it, and we added in comedy. Comedy is like, you know, really can talk about some hot-button issues where people can laugh at it. And you're not wrong there. When you're talking about depressing, like, huh, man, taxes are going to be the ruin of us. Having a little bit of humor in there certainly helps. And, yeah, regardless, you know, me and twos have a lot of fun with what you guys do and your awards and everything else.

I think it's just excellent. I didn't realize Fibber was in there. That's a new one to me. Well, I love listening to the mashup, and poor twos every now and then he'll come out with this term. And it will make me laugh. And I'll just write down what he said and send it back to him. And he just thinks it's the funniest thing because I can't even repeat, obviously, some of the things that he says. But, you know, it was always, it's the jester in the king's court who was able to talk back to the king.

Fair enough. Right? And in Shakespeare, it's often the fool who knows actually what's going on and speaks truth to the audience. It's pretty amazing throughout human culture that it's humor that cuts through everything. and gets to them and so yeah these politicians can start thinking that they're some sort of duke or feudal lord they're not so that's why we mock them and everybody should and everybody should i want to i want to i want to bring up with you uh uh c18 you know if we if people go back and listen to the maybe the first or second time chris is on the podcast you can hear a whole lot about

your career and media and everything else. When you see C-18, mixed with C-11, like, where does your head go? This actually, I don't know what's worse. The carbon tax, like making stuff unaffordable for people, or this tightening noose of censorship in Canada.

I'm starting to think it's the latter. Because if you and I can't have this conversation, then we can't be fools and speak truth to people anymore. So C-18 basically is the online news act, for lack of a better term. In a nutshell, the federal government wants to force, and they've already passed it, wants to force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay mainstream media outlets for whenever a link to their stories are posted.

Okay? So every time post, click, pay, right? Imagine that. Well, Google and Facebook are gigantic, and they're not super interested in paying our mainstream media up here in Canada for whatever, which, by the way, the mainstream media is largely dependent on things like Google and Facebook to get traffic to their sites. Okay? So because that didn't have a direct accountability tax element, we didn't take a direct aim at it, but we kept an eye on it real close because guess what? now. Now that Google and Facebook are like, go fly a kite, we're not going to pay for this.

The minister has trotted out and said, oh, don't worry, we need to keep these newsrooms open, and we will make sure that they have the resources they have. Which means more money coming from taxpayers. Resources and government talk means taxpayers money. And what's this we stuff? Why does the federal government have to take upon itself to keep private newsrooms open? It shouldn't. But we get back to C-11 and we get back to media funding. This is critically important. Journalists should not be paid by the government.

Ever. That includes the CBC. That includes the bailout that they've been spending $600 million on. it shouldn't happen. Why? Because it's an obvious conflict of interest. So let's separate, take out the CBC, throw it away for now. Look just at what's happening with media funding.

With the so-called media bailout, those who partake in it, Sean, that works out to about $13,000 per reporter. Imagine you're that reporter on Parliament Hill. It's your job to call it straight. You're the ump, okay? You're the ref. You have the government over here and the opposition over here. Government pays 13 grand of your salary.

That could determine whether or not you got a job. Opposition wants to scrap it. How are you going to call that game straight? You can't. Even if you did yeoman's work trying to do so, it is the perception of bias that kills trust in journalism. And guess what? It's gone. I just finished writing an article

and I don't know when it's going to get published. Good luck, right? There's something called the Trust Index. This is a huge one. It's been going on for 30 years. It's a major survey that happened in Canada every year. It's called the Trust Index. More than 60% of Canadians now think

that journalists are trying to actively mislead them with things they know to be false. That's brutal. I'm not talking about mispronouncing someone's name or getting a number wrong or an innocent mistake, which used to keep journalists up, by the way, at night. There'd be court cases I'd be covering. I'd be like, did I get that name right or that date right? It would wake you at three in the morning.

Journalists are supposed to care about that. Now, a huge majority of Canadians think they're actively deceiving them. So that's gone. That trust is gone. That's brutal. And one of the reasons why is, of course, because they're taking government money. And this is what's terrible, is even those who aren't taking government money, everybody assumes they are now. So they're all tainted. They're all painted with the same brush. And Andrew Coyne had put it, he said, you know what? We're going to be looking like grantsmen. We're going to be treating the government like a grantsman.

He's totally opposed to government funding of media. So if you combine this now, what you just set up, up, what you just explained with C-18. Government is deciding who is a qualified journalist. Government is paying those journalists with taxpayers' money. Through C-11, government is going to try to silence alternative media that probably don't take government money. And now they're talking about paying more taxpayers' money to the media. That's a bleak, bleak outlook, although it's funny to me.

I don't know. This is where I'll add in a little bit of hopefulness, because I feel like the harder they try and control it, the more people that find people like us. Yeah. Because they're just like, they're like, this is strange. And then they find it, and then they're like, oh, here it is. And so, I don't know, the harder they try and close out the loop,

they almost have a, you know, the reciprocating factor happens. Like it's like it's, you know, the opposite happens, you know, the Streisand effect. It's like we're trying to close us down. Nobody's watching, like the CBC, don't get me wrong, is what would mean two is talking about there a few weeks ago. It's a crazy low percentage of the population that tunes into it anymore. They're digging their own hole. And every time they start bailing them out some more,

they dig it a little deeper. And all these bills coming in, like even the left didn't agree entirely with what these bills were about, right? They had a whole different audience. of different people across the board. It wasn't just, I don't know, Pierre Pollyav yelling at him, like the amount of people yelling at them,

like this is a terrible idea, was ginormous. It is. It's a huge group of people. And you're right, it's left and right. So Canada land is a really popular podcast for people who are pretty left wing. I would describe it as a pretty hard left outlet. But they're totally opposed to government intervention in media

and government funding of media, right? What I found, Interesting. Remember if I guess it's probably about a month or so, six weeks ago, it's hard to tell every now and then. When Elon Musk labeled CBC government-funded media on Twitter, the outrage. It was so weird. It's like, guys, you literally are government-funded media. Was that not great? That was like, man, put a cherry on top of Twitter for doing that. Like, that was just fantastic. And then they're like, we're only, what was it? We're not 100% fun and we're less than 70% or whatever they said and then he came back with 69%.

I loved that. That was funny. And it was pretty accurate too. You're like, this is, this is beautiful. This is absolutely beautiful. Like this is, this is what he's making fun of our national media network. Like, oh my God. This is insane. See how much that penetrated? Again, he's being the fool. Right. He's holding up the mirror and mocking them. And look at how mad they got. Hey, they touched a nerve. They should just keep on doing that. And it's bloody true. And hey, you know what? If they don't like being called government funded media, there's a real quick solution. Yeah, stop taking the funding. Stop taking the money. Pretty simple. And to your point on on viewership, you're right. I did a deep dive on this for our

taxpayer magazine all about the CBC. The question was, do we need a government broadcaster? Sure to answer. No. Their viewership is just in the tank. So Blacklock's reporter, an outstanding organization. I just had Holly on. Oh, I love her and Tom. Okay, so great. So they did a good dive on this on how much viewership they get. Less than one percent of Canadians are watching the six o'clock supper hour news on ZD. Think about that, folks. Like, that is insanity. Yeah. And think how many, think of how many Canadians watch Tucker or Rogan or, you know, honestly, whatever equivalent, you know, left-wing podcast are doing. And this is the thing that I talk a lot of. boat is that you know um Canadians need something they can trust and and by trust it

there's nothing wrong so I'm a huge fan of Joe right I'm a huge fan but he's an American living in Texas how the heck does he know what's going on in Canada he does why I tell everybody to watch to listen to your show right like I mean I mean like so hearing Canada we have to find a way to get some of those 99% that I've got right to say out loud and it's like you have, we have to find a way to pull, I'm not saying that it has to be a new CBC, but geez, man, like, think about that. One percent of Canadians are watching what we're bailing out with hundreds of millions of dollars. Like, oh, Maca. And not just that. It's the,

it's the executive bonuses they give to each other and everything. Like, I forget how the numbers worked out, but basically their executive pay, like they're what people call the C-suite, they spend more on that than they do on. on First Nations programming. So they will try to say something like, oh, well, you know, it's up to us to defend, blah, blah, blah. If you take a look at where they're spending their money, they're spending more money on, you know,

their mucky mucks within the CBC than they are on First Nations programming. And there's other and better ways of getting great coverage for First Nations communities. APTN does amazing work and they take a fraction of the money from the feds that the CBC does. Almost all of their funding, the large majority of it, comes from private donations, private media, sponsorships, advertising, all that stuff. And they deliver like a 6 o'clock news every single night. And I actually like watching it because it grew up rural. And so they'll talk about, you know, hunting and snowmobiling and stuff, like the way that I used to grow up.

And what is that? It's called APTN, Aboriginal People's Television Network. You've probably seen it. Is it on TV or is it on my, both? on, if you just turn on, if you go up near a news world or whatever it is, it should be right there. It's funny. It's funny, I don't have cable anymore. I just, I got, I just, I got, like I was you go to, I remember being a kid, Chris, you know, I was in 86, so, you know, I was towards the late stages of the 80s. But anyways, I remember like two and four, having two channels out in

rural, and then going in and seeing like cable, oh my God, look at all the channels. And then Of course, satellite. And, you know, and oh, my God, look at all the channels. And now when you go through it, it's almost sad what's there. Like, there's just nothing there. Yeah. This is a waste of mine. Like, there's nothing here.

Yeah, I'm not cool enough to get rid of the cable yet. So I'm older than you, so I'm hanging on to it. But yeah, APTN's there. Why are you hanging on to it? Because I'm retro. I don't know. I think it's, I want to be able to, so, for example, there's a new one called the News Forum, right? which is right there.

They just got mandatory carriage, so they're right there next to CBC and CTV and Global. And so you can flip to them. I'm always trying to see what mainstream people are thinking. Sure. So what is the news forum then? The news forum is a new, they're in our magazine a little bit.

They're based out of, is it, St. Catharines? They're not in Toronto. They're just outside of Toronto and Ottawa, in Ontario where their headquarters is. And they have all-day news. and they would cover it from more of I would describe a fiscal conservative standpoint. So it's enjoyable. Yeah, and it's free market.

There's actually quite a few former Canadian Taxpayers Federation directors on there, even as hosts. So they get into legal stuff, they get into financial stuff. So I've done quite a few chats with them about things like the carbon tax. No kidding. Yeah. It's funny. This is my, you know, when you remove yourself completely from assistant cable, right? you just don't you just don't care anymore and and that's and that's what they've I mean speaking

to cable but you're when you just talk about trust in journalism and all together when you wrote it that much you just don't care anymore which means you actually miss out on very good information that's sitting there and probably other people's people trying to do better that are sitting there but you miss them all because you're just like I'm this is stupid unplug me and I'm just gonna go about my daily you know but then you miss information you miss good things happening yeah it's That end, I took, hey, I feel you. Like, it's the same thing. I listen mostly to podcasts and stuff and alternative things, but I still tune in as

regularly as I can, largely so that I can understand my neighbors and my extended family. Because a lot of them are older, and that's where they get their news from still. And as a longtime journalist, I still have this little flicker of hope that we can fix this. that we can stop government funding, stop all of this nonsense of censorship, get back to the W-5s, who, where, when, why, and really bring it back.

I might be completely naive in hoping that, but yeah, I still tune in as often as I can. And News Forum is a new mainstream media channel. Well, I tell you what, for people who still have it, then I suggest check it out, because, I mean, if it's something that's worth being supported.

I mean, that's what we're looking for, right? We're looking for different ideas that are doing it better and doing it in a way that you can actually start to listen and watch and not be like indoctrinated with some BS, you know? Like, it'd be nice just to have something. You know, what did I hear yesterday? Just like a place where I could just tune in and get the news. Like, I could just get the news.

Because everywhere I go, it just feels like they're trying to steer me one way or another and I don't want to be steered. I just want to hear what's going to. going on, that's it, if that place exists. A lot of places, a lot of newsrooms used to keep that ethos, and there might be too philosophical, but I think what happened largely is that something changed within the journalism schools so that instead of like breaking them down into little jarheads like you do with boot camp and saying your duty is to find out the facts, who, what, where, when, why.

Doesn't matter what your opinion is. You need to gather all these facts. You need to put them together in a logical and clear and reasonable order, then you need to check your biases to make sure it isn't tilted one way or the other. If it's a really hot issue, you need to make sure you get both sides. So they're not expecting you to be a robot, okay? They expect you to be balanced. You have to understand your own interests and your wants and all that stuff and then balance against them and make it as clear as possible. I think they lost that. And now, from the looks of it, the idea is, because you are a journalist, ergo you are objective. Right? Because you've driven through this car wash, you are now clean.

No, no, it's the soap and the scrubbing and everything else that does that. And if you don't do that hard work of checking your biases, doing your W-5s, attending the boring council meetings, all that stuff, you can become hung up on the idea that you're this objective vector of information. well you can't be that and unless you know that you are biased and make sure you check against them you're just going to blurt out your opinion all the time and i think that's that's my hunch i haven't been inside a journalism school in a long time but i've noticed a major change well i appreciate uh i appreciate you hopping on and uh giving us a bit of uh you know i knew with july one coming the second carbon tax i'm like well who's the one lady that i can bring on to talk about this nice and easy right

Before I let you out of here, let's do the Crude Master final question. It's what's next for Chris Sims? And if there is a way, how could myself or the audience help you? So I've got two things. I'm here in Alberta. So off the top, like I said, I really want the Premier to put taxpayer protection against the carbon tax. So long-term planning, we know that it's not going to happen in August, but we want that protection in there for the future because that's how you make good planning.

My main fight going forward federally is going to be exactly the media thing. We need to defund the CBC and we need to stop paying the media. And it's for all those fundamental free speech, open, free press reasons that you and I always talk about. So that is my big fight. And it's not just professional because that's that I'm working with the Taxpayers Federation and I'm out to save taxpayers billions of dollars with the help of my team and achieve that goal. That's essential. But the other reason why we're in this fight, Sean, is because we're about accountability. There's no way that we can hold the government to account if the

media is getting paid by the government. That's not accountable. The purpose of a free press doesn't mean that those newspapers were free off the stand. It meant it was free from the state. That's what free press meant. And we have to keep that. We have to keep that. We have to get back to that. So anybody who can send me a tip on what's been happening within their newsrooms based on government interference or funding, that would be great. Go sign our petition against defunding the CBC and defunding the media. And what that does is it gets you on our email list and you'll get those email blasts that you just mentioned. And then you'll be part of our standing army. And then the next time we're going to do like a mass email campaign or something like that,

you'll be the first to know about it. So my next big fight is going to be defunding the CBC and stopping the government funding of media. Well, I appreciate your efforts in that, and I appreciate your organization's efforts in that. And I certainly can attest your emails. I think they're perfect. Like they're just a nice, easy,

not exactly that it's easy information. And most of the time you're like, and saying that the last one you had, maybe two ago, was Alberta's fiscal update, which honestly sounded rather hopeful. So things are going well that way, I think. But either way, yeah, I appreciate you coming on. And I know it won't be the last time because I look forward to these chats

because it's kind of been, I don't know, I have these on the podcast, I have these like virtual friendships that kind of grow, you know. And obviously you've been live at one of my shows. And so it's been an interesting, interesting getting to. to know you because it's funny. I literally got one of your emails, I can't remember if I got it sent to me or how. And I was just, I read it and I had this feeling,

I feel like I should reach out to this lady. I'm like, oh, maybe that's a dumb idea. And then when the first time you came on, I was at, well, like lots of people, when I don't really know them that well, I'm like, maybe this is a dumb idea. And it's funny folks, because I'll rewind the clock. I interviewed you in, let's say it was,

I don't know, February this year, because it was March when we were in, It was February. February in Winni, yeah. It was, no, it was in March when you were in Edmonton. I first heard your show a little bit and I liked it. And then here, like personal stuff, my brother died suddenly at 55 out in BC. And I had to drive out there in February.

And of course, I'm in my old truck, right? And what do I do? I just binged all of your show. Like it was like 12 hours straight. And so I had already liked your show. But by then, after doing that quick, that 12 hour drive all the way through. I felt like I knew you by the end of that. And so that's why I was so delighted to be able to come on your show. So that's why I remember it was February. Well, it's just crazy because I literally

had all these misgivings about having you come on. And I don't know why. But in fairness, this happens a lot when I reach out to somebody that I don't really know that well that I've saw a thought they had. And I'm like, that's an interesting thought. I'd like to explore that. And then by the end of the show, I'm like, it's hit my head like 16 times by the time we're done. I'm like, I think she's got to be a part of the panel in Eminton. I think she's got to be a part of the panel in Emmington. I think we get off the show. I'm like, you want to come to Ammonton? What? You want to come to Emmington and be a part of this show? Anyway, so, you know, it's wild. Either way, I appreciate what you're doing, and I hope people will sign up for your, for your emails, because

once again, I know I get a ton of emails, but yours are really like, they're bite-sized. It's, a ton of information packed into a little blurb for me. So there's my sales pitch for, for Chris Sims and the Canadian taxpayer Federation either way. Look forward to seeing what you guys do next and thanks again for hopping on this morning. Thank you.