Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #194 - Chris Lane

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Originally from Grande Prairie he got a degree in Journalism, spent time in the United Kingdom & worked for the CBC for 15 years. Now the CEO of Western Canadian Agribition we talk the CBC, whether Journalists should disclose who they are voting for, bailouts, journalist bias & letting your children fail/grow.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

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Originally from Grand Prairie, Alberta. He graduated with a degree in journalism where he worked in the United Kingdom, and then across Canada for 15 years with the CBC. Currently, he is the CEO of Canadian Western Agribition. I'm talking about Chris Lane. So buckle up, here we go. This is Chris Lane, CEO of Canadian Western Agribition, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Numa podcast today. I'm joined by Chris Lane. So first off, thank you, sir, for hopping on and doing this with me.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Sean. Now, we'll get to it at some point along the way on your background with the CBC and how our two paths cross. But for the listener, you just got married yesterday. I don't know what I was, well, actually, I know exactly what I was doing on day. I was on a boat out on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota with my wife, her family, my family, celebrating a second day or the first full day of marriage. And somehow you've convinced your lovely wife to be sitting here with me. First off, congratulations. But what on earth are you doing downstairs in your basement? Shouldn't you be elsewhere enjoying marriage? Yeah, well, we'll get to that.

I appreciate that. I think, you know, we've had to come from. a fun couple of days this week, all right. So, you know, we're, we'll take off here tomorrow. And right now, today's the down day. So to, you know, clean up a bit and, and say our thank yous. And maybe grab a nap too. So easy to fit this in. Was it a late night? You know what? It feels like it's been a late couple days. So I think, yeah, I mean, I'm not, you know, 25 anymore. So anytime past 10 o'clock feels pretty late to me. Well, you're speaking to a man with three young kids who I know all about that.

It's funny how as you get older, it feels like right around that 8 o'clock, 830, the body just, you're like, what is going on? It isn't that late? And the body's like, yeah, it's time to shut it down. So I can feel your pain. Yeah, I start listening to your body a little more closely these days. Now, let's give the listener a little bit of your back. ground. You grew up in Grand Prairie, but maybe shed some light on where your travels took you.

And, you know, I don't know, as a kid was working for the CBC, how does that fall in your lap? Was that something you always want to do? I mean, obviously you're not with the CBC now. You're with Agribition, your CEO of Agribition. So give us maybe a little bit of the origin story of Chris Lane and how you get, you know, along your career path. Yeah, it is, you know, lots of people sort of see the transition from media to running aggravition as kind of an unlikely jump. But we'll get to it. And it's actually, you know, far less unlikely than I would have thought too. But, you know, yeah, as you said, I grew up in Grand Prairie. I was born and raised there.

And, you know, I think there's, in a place like Grand Prairie, you're lucky enough to be able to see, you know, really a lot of economic drivers. the country happening in one region at a time. So, you know, energy industry is a big part of what Grand Prairie is about. Agriculture is, I would say, even bigger. And then you've got a substantial forestry industry there too. So when I was a kid, my dad worked at the pulp mill in Grand Prairie. Our extended family farmed still does. And, you know, so later on, my dad started his own company, which really serviced

industrial automation. So we were always surrounded by, you know, the forestry, paper industry, energy industry, all of it. So it was a really unique way, a really unique place to see, you know, what drives, especially Western Canada in terms of values and economy. So it really does create a pretty cool lens, I would say, you know, to grow up in. And then when I turned 18, I went to university in Edmonton. I did a couple of years to university there. And like, Anybody who goes to university, maybe the first couple years without a real plan, you kind of bop around, spend a little bit of time in the campus bars, probably more so than you needed to.

No, no, you wouldn't. Yeah, yeah. You just sort of sample life a little bit, right? And so I was doing that. And by the second year, I'd figured out that I was, here's interesting. I was either decided I was going to be a lawyer. So I was going to do a bunch of pre-law work, or I was actually pretty interested in becoming a priest. So I did a little bit of work in theology. I did a little bit of application work into

what seminary school would look like and decided somewhere along those university days that maybe that wasn't my calling. Probably better for the church, better for me. What, if you don't mind me hopping in here, what was it that, what was it that attracted you to becoming a priest? Like, what was your thought process there if you don't mind me digging on you a little bit? Yeah, sure. Well, you know, I have a keen interest in sort of history and theology and I spend a lot of time, you know, reading and researching and, you know, around things of theology. I grew up in Catholic school. So that was sort of the first base of, you know, first touch point in that. Yeah. And so I at that age, I mean, you know, maybe you're discovering a lot about yourself at that age. I sure was. And,

you know, I chased that down a little bit as maybe there's something deeper here around faith and and theology that I could spend a lot of time, a lot of time focusing on. But, you know, there's a big difference between being interested in it and making it your life's work. So when it came down to it, that was actually a pretty wide gap. And so I remain interested in it, but it's sort of bedtime reading, not a vocation for life. So I would actually bouncing around between these kind of things. And yeah, didn't really know what was. you know, what really life was going to have in store for me. And then I remember one time I came home and I was sitting around the kitchen table with my dad and we were kind of having the conversation

on what do you want to do. And I have to give, you know, my parents a lot of credit. I sure didn't have parents that that really said or directed you in any kind of mold. Sort of the world was your oyster and, you know, you're going to fail or succeed based on, you know, your own decisions. So I didn't have a lot of push to do one thing or another. And we were just sitting around the kitchen table one day and we kind of started talking about, you know, whether journalism or, or, you know, writing was something that I could do for a career and did a bit of research on that. And so I did. I ended up applying for journalism school. And in those days, there weren't, there's not a ton of journalism schools, a degree granting schools in Canada, honestly. So there's,

you know, a couple out east. There's really, at that time, there was only one really in the West and that was here in Regina and there were a couple other programs on the West Coast. So I ended up applying and getting into the journalism school in Regina, Saskatchewan. And at that point, nobody in my family had ever been really east Edmonton. So I got a lot of ribbing when I decided to move to Regina. I'd never been here before in my life. There was a family saying that anybody east Edmonton is a Newfoundlander. So I got a fair amount of ribbing for getting a different area code there.

But yeah, so I came to journalism school here in Regina and really, honestly, I fell in love with Regina as much as I did the profession and the school. So I decided that one day I was going to live here and make this my home. And journalism schools is certainly interesting process. I mean, like I said, I didn't have a childhood passion to be one thing or the other except a race car driver. That's what I, when I was eight years old, I was pretty sure that's what I was going to be. That didn't pan out. Did you ever, did you ever race? No, I didn't. No, I did a bit of a competitive go-karting, but again, that's a, that was a path that I, I just not very good at it. So I enjoy it.

That's cool. Anyway, so I go to journalism school in Regina. Never been here in my life. Absolutely fall in love with the city, which I think in those days, and even these days, maybe that's a bit of an unusual thing. In Saskatchewan, we send a lot of people out. But, you know, it's certainly in those days, not a lot of people came in. with a passion for it. But it struck me. I think it's one of those things. It fills a space in your life at a certain time. And I think that's the city is where I sort of learn to be independent, learn to be my own person. And so it's got a lot of good things have come under the city for me.

And through the process of journalism school, you know, you learn the basics around, you know, maybe the craft of the profession. So, you know, how to shoot, how to edit. If you're doing broadcast, if you're writing for magazines, that's different, how to interview people, those kind of things. Had some wonderful lectures, you know, people in the media industry that are, you know, that were top-notch, would come and share what they knew with us.

And I was lucky enough in journalism school to get a scholarship that was a traveling scholarship. And so immediately after graduation, I actually missed my graduation because I took a job working for a news magazine in London, England. So I packed up my suitcase on my 22nd birthday. moved to London, England for a little bit to work in a news magazine there. So a guy who had never been east of Emmington goes to Regina falls in love with the city and from there gets the bug and goes across the ocean. Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that happens to a lot of journalism students,

or at least it did with the folks I was hanging around with is we all thought we were going to be work correspondents. So that's sort of the sexy thing everybody wants to do. They want to be the, you know, the guy in the, you know, with the scud missiles flying off behind you in the background. that's that's kind of the goal so any anywhere i thought was was a little sexier than than working out a small town paper had my name on it so i was up for that adventure um in between then we did a pretty good internship program at that school and i'd interned at cbc in calvary so i had

had some connections there and you know interning uh interning is is about as glamorous as it sounds a lot of answering phones a lot of filing papers uh but i had a pretty good time but anyway after graduation, I go to London and I start working and writing and doing some interviews covering Commonwealth issues, actually. The magazine was essentially a wire service for English-speaking publications in the Commonwealth. So I did a couple of cool projects. I covered prime minister's visit to the United Kingdom. I wrote a feature article on modern day piracy.

So it was really diverse. There was a lot of stuff to talk about and really interesting stuff to chase down. So I did that and then promptly ran out of money less than a year in, but almost a year, I think. And CBC had called in the meantime and said, hey, if you are interested in a job back in Calvary, we've got one that we'd like to bring you in for. So think about it. And at that time, the bank account was running low and I'd had some. adventures in England and I thought what uh what did your what did your adventures over in England teach you um when you look back at it and you know you're in a different country with you

know i mean english speaking yes but you're in a different country um in a different part of the world than everything else when you look back on that time or maybe even during that time i mean you must have learned an awful lot about yourself but you're you're in the beginning of crafting your craft. I mean, you're developing that. What did you, what did you learn over over on the other side? I think that was, you know, there's lots of good lessons there. One of the things I learned is that we take for granted, I think, in Canada, or at least I do, is, is how, you know, how well our infrastructure really works. And we have lots of complaints about our infrastructure that are justified, right? And I'm not talking just about roads and bridges. I'm thinking, you know, specifically, I remember the

struggle just trying to get a phone line at my flat in London and how, you know, here, you phone the phone company. The house is probably pre-wired for one. It's not a big deal. But over there, I think I had to take about a week off of work to just figure out how to manage the British telecom system and where I had to go. And, you know, I, and that really struck me as a, as something that we would take for granted it is an easy thing that you can do with a couple phone calls,

is that that's not like that everywhere, even in the first world, even in English speaking places. There's just enough differences in the infrastructure and the way it's all managed that for me, you know, even the smallest tasks required way more mental energy to get done than I had been used to. So I was exhausted all the time because it was everything from figuring out,

you know, the transportation system to go get groceries to how to feed yourself for a week, which is substantially different than, anything that I was used to. And obviously it's not impossible. 17 million people live in that city and do that every day. But for a guy like me, you know, and from where I came from, that seemed like that was a tough road on a few days. Well, and I mean, I've lived in several different places. When you're cut off from family and friends and you're left to, you know, either figure it out or you don't, right? Like you find out a lot about what you're made of because, you know,

the easiest things over here, even if they're not that easy, you have the ability to pick up the phone. And, well, I mean, you probably did there too. But I mean, it's not like mom and dad can just slide over and help you with the problem, you know what I mean? Or a good friend or whatever else. It's like, well, I'm sitting here and can't get the phone to work. So that's fun, right? Yeah, I think a lot of things in my experience in Regina would say the same thing is, you know, the minute you're sort of out of, you know, either, you know, driving or traveling distance from your safety net of people, your network of folks, anytime you're, you're geographically that separate where, you know, if things get hard for a minute, you know, you're really on your own about it.

You know, I think that builds a lot. I think you really find out who you are and maybe who you want to be. So there's lots of little instances like that in some of the places I've lived that I think I wouldn't, you know, as difficult as they might have been in the moment or even as trivial as they might have been in the moment. I don't want anybody to think that, you know, I was hustling the streets of London to get by, but, you know, trivial things that just make you think and make you work a little bit harder than you otherwise would when you don't have that safety net right beside you. I think that, you know, I think that builds a lot. I think pretty much a lot. A, I agree. But to what I would say is, I think almost all kids should have to experience that at some point, right? Or adults, a young adults,

right at 18 or 19 or 20 whatever it is you got to get out from under the wing of of you know parental protection and everything else and if you go somewhere else in the world and see the way of life they have and maybe see some of the challenges they have it can give you new um perspective on everything that we take for granted or you know um i have lots of discussions right now you know like uh well liberals have been in you know they're they're trying to get in for their I guess we'd call it their third term. And there's a lot of people out West specifically saying, you know, we got to fight harder for what we do have because, you know,

I would have argued, well, short of five years ago, Chris, that, you know, like, we have it pretty good here. Like in our country, everything is top-notch, as good as it can be in the world. and yet you can't just sit on your hands and watch that all slide away. And I'm sure that that can be up for debate on what that exactly means on what we have to do. But if all kids went around, left the nest, so to speak, whether it's to the other side of Canada, to see how they interact and how their lives are, because, I mean, our country's awfully big and seeing the diversity of it is pretty powerful.

but then if you can take that one step further and move to a different country and actually have to interact, and then if you could take a one step further move to a country with a different language and have to interact all over again, it teaches a lot about what you're made of. It forces you out of your comfort zone, which is always a good thing because it's going to teach you some things. It's going to show you what you are made of. And that is a very confidence building exercise to do. Yeah, I think so. I agree, Sean.

And I think there's, you know, if there's one thing that I really, do try to instill in our kids here. It's, you know, there's, there's not a lot of helicopter parenting. I mean, you want to be there to guide and to guard, but I think, you know, we really lose a lot of what life can offer for you if, you know, if you're constantly, you know, not being allowed to maybe fail and learn some things along the way. And I, I think as parents, we all, you know, are, are never really going to aim to let disaster befall our kids. But, You know, maybe some things, it's good to be uncomfortable once in a while and have to figure something out. Here's a, here, here's a, I interviewed a lady, Tanya Abbey.

She was the youngest, used to be the youngest woman to ever solo circumvent circumnavigates or circumvent circumnavigate the world on a sailboat. I was like, I forget how long it was. It wasn't a giant sailboat. And at 18, after having spent one summer with her father and like two siblings on a boat, she did not grow up on a boat. Her father basically put her on a boat and said, have fun, we'll see you, whatever. And she couldn't remember, she didn't know how to sail. And I, like, I read that story. And then I heard her talk about it.

And I'm like, can you imagine being a parent and having the gumption to send your child out into the deep blue sea on something they don't fully understand knowing that it'll be like I mean obviously it'd be a wild lesson to learn and you would know you'd be so confident by the time you got back as long as you do get back. But you imagine being the parent, you know, that's the complete utter opposite of a helicopter parent. That's like, holy dinah, we're going to do what? Like, because, you know, like to let your kid climb the, the, you know, the rock wall, so to speak at the park. When they're, you know, two years old and want to do it, you're kind of like, maybe I should be there.

But if they fall, it's only three feet and it's fine, right? And here's a guy pushing his daughter out the door to go sail the world. Yeah, I think that's amazing. And, you know, it's those kind of people that end up writing books about their life. So, you know, there's, yeah, obviously there's something to be said about, you know, whether you're sort of pushed or whether your parents sort of create the environment for you to come into it on your own and just sort of stand on your own two feet and learn your own experiences a bit. Yeah, I have lucky enough to have been able to do quite a bit of that, I think, in my life.

And, you know, it's funny you mentioned sailing. And that's one of the things I did in London as I never sailed the boat, but I decided I was going to learn how to sail. So I signed up for sailing lessons and that's, you know, I ended up, I think they call it a level two royal yachtsman, which I think is basically tie a couple knots and come up for air if you fall off the boat. that's the level. But, you know, I think if you have that, you know, your podcast talks about talking to adventurous people.

I think if you have a, you know, even a little bit of adventure in your spirit, you kind of look for those things, right? You know, what's going to make me uncomfortable? What don't I learn or what don't I know that I can learn here? And, you know, I think, I just think that's a wonderful thing. And as parents, if we can not helicopter and sort of stoke the fires of that adventure, in our kids, I think that's the result is you get people like, you know, willing to sail around the world or really just step out of their own backyard a little bit. Or move across to Regina and from Regina take an opportunity to go to England.

Like, I mean, like that's. Yeah, we all have our scales, right? Whatever your adventure at the moment, it's, yeah, we all have our scales. On a complete side note, have you ever read The Alchemist? A long time ago I did. Yeah, I did read that in my first year of university. I'm literally listening to it on audiobook right now, and it's exactly that. Sorry, it's just kind of like is the perfect, you know, a boy owns a, as a shepherd and buys a flock of sheep so that he can travel. And, you know, and then begins to see the world and sells the sheep and goes across the ocean and just keeps traveling. And I find it so, I don't know, timely, I guess, that I'm reading it and talking to you. This is where the conversation goes. So it's always, it's always interesting.

I would, you know, I would say wholeheartedly, I enjoyed my education. But I also, I would say equally wholeheartedly that I've learned way more traveling and being in situations that I was a bit of an outsider than I would ever learn in a formal education setting. So, you know, I have a lot of time and I have a lot of interest for people who's who've built their education around doing things and seeing things rather than form. normally necessarily learning things in a structured environment. When you say that, where are some of the places? You mentioned England, where else,

like I swear I read somewhere and I can't remember. I was, I've been, I've been busy the last little bit. And anniversary, you know, you're getting married our anniversary of seven years. So celebrating that.

But I think I read somewhere that you worked in PEI. Is that possible or that you live, You worked in PEI. So PIE, England, where else have you been? Well, so I lived in PEI for five years with CBC. Five years. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, more like four, just about five. But yeah, I mean, that was an experience. We can get into that any time you want. That's a very unique place. You know, but again, with the kind of jobs that I've had, I've had the ability to see and be in some pretty cool places. Agaribition alone, I did not expect. the agribition job to be such a, you know, kind of a globe-trouting job.

But, you know, once or twice a year, it's a big part of this job is international market development and market access. So I've had the opportunity to go to Australia, had the opportunity to go to Argentina, Europe. And, you know, there's more on that list that are, that's going to come. In my own personal travels, I've been, you know, I've been to Europe a few times, you know, seen lots of that country. And, you know, I even think there's lots to explore in this country.

No, there's a, there's a crazy amount to explore in this country. Yeah, one of the things I did through COVID was get my private's pilots license and got myself a little airplane. So I've been enjoying seeing places that I have seen before, but from a totally different perspective. So is the picture of Craven, did you take that then? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's a solid shot. I didn't catch that in your Twitter feed. as you can tell, I've been creeping on you a little bit. I saw the picture.

I'm like, oh, it's a cool picture. Craven. All right, cool. And then now that makes sense. Yeah, I think just it's just the perspective changes the minute you're off the ground, obviously, of what you're seeing. But, you know, metaphorically, the horizon is just so much bigger too. Like, you see how it all connects, especially in a place like Saskatchewan where you can,

you know, the joke about it being so flat and kind of so monotonous. You know, once you're up at 5,000 feet and you see how the railway connects all these towns and they all connect to each other and how they move around the landscape, you know, for me anyway, it starts to all come together and make a lot more sense about where the water goes and where the railway goes and where the people are and how they move around. Yeah, you're seeing the big picture. You're getting, you know, the up high view of everything. And it's hard to do when you're sitting in a building in Regina to see the big picture, I suppose. Yeah, that's right. What, you, you, you lit up when I bring up P.E.I. You, you work there for five years. You say it's quite the place. What, uh, how was living in PEI? Um, you know, I got to give you a, before you answer that question, you know, back years ago in 2006, when we biked it, we biked across PEI in a day and I always laugh. I got across a province in one day. And PEI was it because, I mean, it's not this giant place. It's a little spot and that Confederation Bridge, man, you can see it from, eons away, or at least it feels like it. What was, what were the stories that you were running,

uh, and writing about on PEI like? Well, it is, you know, I could talk about this forever because it was such a different experience for me. I had moved to PEI from, from Calgary. I'd been in Calgary for five years and, uh, you know, it was the middle of the sort of the early 2000s when Calgary was hot, hot, hot. And it was busy and it was growing and, you know, it never slept. And, uh, you know, you couldn't pick a more different environment to just, you didn't downshift a gear. You shifted transmissions entirely to go from Calgary in 2006 to Prince Edward Island. And so, you know, I was pretty excited. It was obviously something very different.

And as you can tell, that's a bit of a theme. It was out of my comfort zone. And I was happy to go. And, you know, again, it's Canadian province. It's, you know, everybody speaks to language. they're all, you know, they're all versions of view for the most part. It's not on the surface, it's not that different. But living there is, you know, you get a sense of just how different things are from what we know in the West.

And the first one is honestly the depth of the history of the place, right? There are families that have been, you know, on that little island for 400 years. And when you come out to where we're from, you know, a long time out here, right? Yep. So the depth of history is a big one. And I think socially what you see happening is there's not a ton of in and out migration in a place like PEI. So you get families and family names in certain geographies of that province that are,

they're almost like aristocracy of Prince of Rhode Island. So there are not a lot of secrets on PEI. So if you have one family name and you're from this area, probably everybody knows how you vote. And if you have this family name and you're from this area, everybody knows you vote the other way. And it's not the politics out there are, you know, they're so establishment politics.

Whereas out here, I would say there are a lot more retail. There are a lot more modern grassroots style politics. But in PEI, what I noticed is that there was real, there was a real issue around patronage there where, you know, all the families that voted one way, you know, if your team wasn't in, then you probably didn't, you know, get crack at the best government jobs. But if there was a switch in governments, then there was this cycle of government appointed jobs, you know, everything from, you know, from high-end jobs to snowplow drivers. And they would switch. They would, you know, sometimes your contract didn't get renewed if you were,

if your last name wasn't the right name of the guy who was in power. And so you had this, you know, and this was this ebb and flow around politics and people. And everybody accepted that. That's just the way it was. And I think it's a, I think now it's sort of modernized. I don't think it's like that as much as it was. But when I got there, it was right at the tail end of that. And there were these, you know, these, just these ways of doing things and way of being that struck me as very different.

in Canada because I couldn't have come from a more different place. But, you know, when we were just talking about the things that you learn in situations like that about yourself and about others, it was, it would have been pretty easy, and it was pretty easy to think of yourself as some hot shot Albertan showing up to a place as slow and remote as PEI and thinking, well, these guys are backwards. I can't believe they do this. I'll show them how it's done. But I don't know about you, Sean, but I learned there, that's when it really struck

me is that things operate the way they do in a place for a reason and that can be as something as grand as well these are the founding families and this is how this island operates politically it just it just does because that's how it needs to operate or it can be something as simple as when I got there the house we bought had an oil stove like an oil furnace because there's no natural gas out there so it was oil furnace and then had a backup wood furnace. And it was not uncommon that people would have these two heating systems in their homes. And I thought, what year are we in here? Are we really heating this home, this modern home with wood?

I said, you know what? Tear it out. I don't want it. It makes the insurance go high. It must have been a leftover from 50 years ago. Well, it didn't take long. The first winter we were there. they get real winters, real snow like we don't get out here.

And the power's never on because they can't bury any power lines because it's just the water table. So I don't in the sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. So none of the power lines are buried, which means they're all subject to the weather, which means the power goes out all the time, which means in the winter, you want a secondary wood fire heating system. So we had to put the wood stove back in. You know, so that's a lesson that'll stick with you for the rest of your life. That's like, I'm so smart.

No, I'm an idiot. Yep, exactly. Things are the way they are for a reason. So before you, you know, start undoing them and untying those knots, best to do a bit of research into what that reason is. Because chances are, if it was a dumb way to do it, they would have figured it out before you got there. Yeah, that's funny.

That's, you know, I always, one of my stupid moments, because I say this over and over again, and I apologize to every listener who's heard this. 13 million times. But like when I was 18, I really thought I had the world by the nuts. And then at 25, I look back at 18 and you kind of get the drift. And then at 30, I looked at 25 and you go, oh, and at 35 where I sit now, I look back at 30 and 25 and everything else. And I just go like, I don't think I'm ever going to figure this out. Like I'm just, you know, and sometimes you just got to use your ears and listen and sit back and digest.

it and then maybe make a decision. And the story that I owe it that happened to me was we had the water run out of a well out at North Floyd. And in this farmhouse, we had a drilled well, not a, not a board well. And so, but everybody else had board wells. And a buddy of mine just said, here, call this number, cost you 500 bucks. And just get them to come do a couple test spots. They'll tell you if you got water here and whatever.

It'll take like a day and you'll have it. And I was like, no, man. I'm just going to, I'm going to get them to drill a hole right beside where my water is. I'm going to have a well in like a week and a half. It's going to cost a bit more, but not a big deal. There it would be. And it was like three weeks later, I still had no water. I had paid an astronomical amount, still no water, and ended up calling.

I'm like, just give me the number. I'll call the guy. He'll come out and he came out and you got water right there, you know, and you build a water well. And I'm just like, sometimes you're too smart for your own self, right? you need to learn those lessons to because like that's the best teacher right there that is the best teacher nobody else can teach you that lesson but yourself and sometimes i always throw around the question chris of like you know if you could go back right now to yourself and p i'm walking the door and talk to yourself before you rip it up like would you listen to yourself and lots of times

i'm pretty sure i would have told my future self like piss off i know what i'm doing like leave me along like i'm bullheaded i got it yeah i think one of the honestly one of the greatest blessings about growing older a little bit is, you know, you come across these things in life that knock you down a few pegs. And there's, there's power and humility, right? I think there's, there's, you know, to be strong enough to be humble about the things you know, you don't know, and allow other people their, their space and their expertise. You know, I think is a, that's a powerful thing that actually is a huge advantage as you get older and you need experiences like that to kind of show you, one of the the the the the lessons that I I took from my father that I'm not even sure he really

knows that he taught me but um like every kid you help your dad with a project and you screwed up along the way and you get given the wrong wrench and and whatever but I my thing was is I oh I can never hold a flashlight right it was always wrong it was always pointed at the wrong thing or casting shadow is in the wrong way so you know over time I sort of learned where to stand and and how to hold this flashlight. And, you know, it's, it's a saying that I've, I tell myself all the time is, you know, through that experience holding a flashlight for your dad, what my dad taught me was never stand in someone else's light. And that, you know, you can apply that in any way you want. But it comes to, you know, it is a bit of a lesson in how to be humble.

And, you know, anytime I need to remind myself about my own humility, I'll always, come out a better person for it, I've found. That's it. That's an interesting line. Never stand in someone else's light. Now, you're talking specifically for their area of expertise? Yeah, I think so. Well, you know, I can, you can apply it in a lot of different ways. I mean, I think some of the greatest things that we can do to help those around us is not,

you know, is figure out a way to let them shine. And I think right back to what we're talking about our kids and, you know, maybe not helicopter parenting them. To me, that's the same thing is, you know, let these kids shine a little bit, even if they fall down or, or whatever. But, you know, even around expertise, you know, there's, you know, like your well story,

I don't know how to dig a well. So, you know, you spur on. Let people who know what they're doing, do what they know how to do. You spur on thoughts of, of what we're going through right now, COVID vaccines. We don't need to go into the deep rabbit holes of all of it.

But just to bring you up to speed, I'm a guy who criticizes a lot of what's going on and lockdowns and vaccine passports, you know, whether they're coming for us or not. That stuff, to me, I worry about. And I put a lot of time into think about it. But in fairness, I'm no doctor.

I'm no politician. I'm no medical expert. I'm just an oil field worker who at nighttime does this. And I, I, but it worries me as a society of where we're going. But I'm, you know, when you say don't stand in someone else's light, and almost to what I'm doing need to be careful, engaged at how I approach that situation. Well, you know, I would say that doesn't, you know, my interpretation of that that little life axiom isn't about disengaging where you feel you've got something to add. I think we all have

a responsibility. You know, that's that's how democracy works. And then, you know, if you have the freedom of expression, best to keep it sharp once in a while, right? But, you know, around this whole COVID thing, I just keep reminding myself, you know, I've got my own thoughts opinions on it too and they're probably not that different from most people out here but um you know everybody who's managing this is doing this for the first time and i would hate for everybody to have a public and diarized itinerary of all the things i screwed up my first time doing anything so i do try to remember that once in a while even though you know we we have a right and a responsibility to critique our leaders on things um but i can guarantee you that

that nobody's going into work and the COVID Central Command trying to screw it up that day. They're all trying to, every decision that gets made, someone's or a group of people are trying to make the right decision. I do have faith in that. I have an equity in humanity and expertise that that people really do, you know, they're not trying to walk in and make it harder. Yeah, I'll agree with you there. I don't think anyone has ill intent on what they're trying to do. the only difference between, you know, Chris's first day on the job, nobody's watching, you know, everything is your, your stumbles don't impact millions of people, right? Like they just, they, I mean, it might impact, you know, listener Lucy or something who tunes in and, you know, has a bad day because Chris didn't get it right or reads an article and their spelling errors and for some reason that irritates.

you know, maybe you get something wrong and you have to correct. And by all means, there's some implications of that. The thing I stumble back, and you know, this is a nice segue into the CBC for that matter is when you, like when you're in something like that where you're trying to learn and trying to like figure it out because you're absolutely right. This thing is new to everybody. This isn't like, oh, go to science class 10 and I'll tell you about pandan,

and oh, here's what we do and this is what we, you know, and this is how you, like, I, I completely agree with that. In saying all that, it is concerning as we sit here in, you know, going into, geez, how long has it been now, Chris? Like, it feels like we're going into closing in on two years of this thing. I don't know. It feels like we're going to be stumbling through the next, you know, winter again. And I, you know, like, I really hope that's not the case. But at some point, even if it is your first time through the gamut of trying to figure out a pandemic and everything else, at some point, there has to be a way to navigate this so that the only answer isn't locking us down for another eight months because we're petrified of people dying. And that sounds

cold and hard, but it's like at some point, we have to find a way that isn't just lock everybody down. just lock everybody down. Just lock everybody down. And I really hope that's coming, but now it's becoming the vaccine passport, right? They announce federally you're going to have to prove proof, which or take a COVID test or, you know, and maybe that should have been there from the start. I'm not sure. Not the vaccine passport, but, you know, if you got to travel to the states and got to take

a COVID test, maybe we should have been doing that within our own country. I don't know the answer to that. I can argue freedoms and rights and everything else. but I will agree. I don't think anybody's walking to work saying, hey, how can I make this worse? Let's screw some people's lives up.

I will argue that overall, it is concerning when we go back to the same playbook or it feels like we do time in time oh. Yeah, I would say there's a huge amount of concern if we're not, if we are not getting smarter about it as we go. And I don't know if we are, we aren't, but I,

you know, I don't think we're disagreeing on. that on that at all. And, you know, I would, as I said before, we have a responsibility to, you know, to hold our leaders accountable to stuff. And we have a responsibility to speak up if it's, if it's, you know, if it becomes part of the public conversation, which this obviously is. So, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest that, that, you know, we have an unquestioningly, an, you know, uncritical look at the world we live in all the time. But I do think is, that a little bit of humility and ability to let people, you know, flex their expertise a little bit

would help. I mean, we'd see it in agriculture all the time, right? It's one of the great PR battles this industry faces all the time is that, you know, there's a bunch of people out there who who don't know a ton of agriculture, criticize agriculture practices all the time. And I would say farmers and ranchers, the one thing they want all the time is just, you know, believe us in that, you know, we're, we know what we're doing when it comes to taking care of the land because if they didn't, they'd be out of a lifestyle and a job themselves. So, you know, that conversation is, I think it's universal, is that if people are willing to invest their life in, in learning and practicing something, then at least we have the, we should be able to grant them the grace. to prove it. And again, it's not to not to avoid criticism. We're not to, you know, not to hold them accountable to it. But yeah, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a, I just think a lot of effort and a lot of time put into some of these things that,

that maybe we don't see all the time. Or that people don't understand how much time has put into it. Because in truth be told, you know, you're talking about farmers. That's near and dear to me. and obviously to you as well, we see it firsthand all the time, right? And, you know, when all the attacks come on, oil and everything else, where do I live? I live right around all these guys who go to work every single day. And we understand that, you know, the environmental impacts and the amount of change, actually, you know, when you think of the oil industry, Chris, over the last, I don't know, let's call it two decades, the last 20 years,

for sure the amount of changes in trying to make it as environmentally friendly as possible. And then almost the fact that just how uneducated probably our population, let's just talk about Canada, heck, even Alberta, Saskatchewan, how undereducated we actually are into what all the oil goes into making for our lives to make us comfortable to heat our houses to, you know, from the cars we drive to the phones we use to the, you know, I don't. I don't know. The list literally goes on and on and on. And part of that is poor management by an industry as a whole, right? Like, I mean, by not bringing the population into the conversation and letting them understand what it all goes to, it's opened up for this like weird attack on, you know,

and I'm speaking specifically where we live, right? Like, I mean, Regina wanted to get away from having oil on billboards and you're like we literally live in a that's part of the backbone of where we're from and to attack that is I'm not saying we can't I would say most people would argue we should be continuing to move to better it so that it's cleaner safer and if we can move away from it and find an alternative why not right but until we get there we can't just like shut everything off and hope things get better we live in a place that you know you say P.E. Experience is true winter.

I've got to chuckle about that because I'm sure there's a lot of, you know, Albertans and Saskatrons. They're hearing that and going, man, what is real winter? Because we go through real winter. And to attack the industry

that helps us survive that is wild, I guess. Yeah. And, you know, maybe I'm colored by, sort of my own experience and where I grew up and the kind of the things I believe in.

But it's a great example of of, you know, the luxury in a society like ours to be able to criticize things like energy and agriculture. You know, I don't, I have a hard time, I don't know, but I have a hard time believing in countries and economies that that have bigger problems than we have, that that's a conversation that is dominating, like it dominates here. You know, when you think about how privileged that we are to be able to criticize, well, I'm not really sure that's the way I like my food grown, and I'm not really sure

that's exactly the way I would want my house heated or my car fueled. You know, that's that smacks of some privilege to me. So I have a lot of, again, a lot of time, energy and advocacy for both energy and agriculture as backbones of not only this part of the country that we love, but I think of all the things that, you know, it allows us to be able to do. It allows us to put our time and energy and effort. You know, one of the things about the Canadian food system, which drives me bananas when I hear, you know, critiques around,

how farmers and ranches are supplying it is, I don't know that anybody lobbying those criticisms has a full understanding of, of, you know, how safe, how reliable, and how affordable domestic food supply is here. And we wouldn't be there if we didn't have a continual improvement mentality around how we raise our food in this country, and I would say North America, too. And energy is the same way. We don't even think about it. The reliability, that's in the energy grid that allows us to do what we do. That's a luxury that most of the world doesn't have. Yeah, you know, when you bring up food, I was listening to Joe Rogan and she's been,

you know, she wrote a book back in 2015, not that I've read it. And I honestly, after listening to on Joe Rogan, I'm like, I really need to. And I'm going to absolutely, I will not get her name right. But you know me, Park. I hope that's close. she's a girl who escaped North Korea when she was 13. You want to talk about, I think every person on for sure in this country, but if you have access to podcasts, honest God,

I think you should look her up and listen to what she talks about, how she went through life for the first like, for sure, 13, if not like 18 years of her life. And her, like, view on food is like, it almost stresses me out. Like she talks about living in North Korea where, you know, if you saw a rat, you ate it. All right. Like, and the rats are eating the dead.

And it's kind of like this vicious, like you kind of get the idea, right? Every morning you wake up and all your thought is on, is on your next meal. And your next meal is, I don't know, like grasshoppers, whatever they can find, right? Because they had no food. and here we're just, you know, like once your basic necessities are taken care of, we start to have these discussions that really spiral into, you know, and I'm speaking specifically of the agricultural and obviously, you know, a big resource we have where I'm from in the oil industry into these things that,

I don't know, you start pulling those things away. I'd hate to be in a position where a guy has to worry about, you know, I got a young family. Like, how are we going to heat the house? Or where is our next meal coming from? Like, those are things in this lovely country of ours in this area we haven't had to worry about in my lifetime. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's easy to maybe take for granted it's the wrong term. But it's easy not to even have that entry or conversation.

As you build your political views or the things that matter to you and how you communicate them, the fact that we don't have to think about too hard meeting bare necessities, you know, and I think that speaks to not everybody in our part of the world has that ability. I'll acknowledge that for sure. But I think the potential to have it is there. And I think, you know, in other parts of the world and other countries, the potential to have it isn't even there. So, you know, we, we do have these discussions and these, and these, you know, these philosophical battles about how we do what we do. And I think it's largely, it's largely the privilege of where we live to be able to have that discussion.

You know, to switch to topics here. I'm curious, you worked for the CBC for 15 years, correct? That's right. Why the change? from everything that I've heard you discuss your travels. And, you know, maybe I need to dig a little harder on it. But I haven't heard anything, you know, that was like concerning of like, I just didn't, you know, like, I didn't really want to be out in P.I.

Or I didn't want to, you know, hear there. And, you know, by all accounts, it sounded like you were moving up the corporate ladder, so to speak, in CBC. So what was it about the career change that was the, that was appealing to you? Well, I guess a couple things. You know, at that stage and, you know, the things you mentioned were largely true is that I was, you know,

enjoying some more, you know, more input, more the ability to take part in more, in more things at a corporate level, not just a sort of a local newsroom level. You know, without shining my own light too much, I'd had the privilege to win a couple of awards along the way now. national awards for what I was doing. And I was feeling like, you know, in 15 years, it's, it's not a lifetime, but it was a long

enough time for me to do some things that made me feel pretty good about, about the contribution that I was making. But at the same time, the media landscape was changing so fast. And, you know, most of my time was spent around television news. And, you know, if you've done any reading on what's happened to television news in the last 10 years, never mind the last five is, you know, it's been a, it's a seismic shift in terms of of whether the thing can even pay for itself and the short answer is generally no. People just aren't watching like that. So, you know, I think at CBC, but also every other,

every other broadcast outlet was undergoing these massive changes. They couldn't really figure out, you know, how to get in front of it and was very reactive. And, you know, really what was happening is I was, you know, I was becoming a little bit homeless there. I, you know, the skill set that I had I had developed and was pretty good at, was becoming less and less of a priority and less of demand. And there's, you know, one of the good things I will say about CBC, there's lots of different opportunities to, you know, to get slotted in or chase something new down. There's a, it is a multimedia company. So there's, there's generally something new and exciting on the horizon. You know, but at the same time, I just felt like maybe it was time to look for something that was,

that used what I had learned. And, and, and here's the funny part. in terms of how different the job seemed, but how similar they actually are, is, is, you know, how can I apply the things that I, that I thought I could bring to the table in a very different way. And as you said, by that time, I was living back in Regina, I had, I had fulfilled that promise to myself when I was a student here, is that one day I'm going to find a way to live here. And I had been, I'd been living in Regina for a few years at that point. And the agribition job, it came up. And I knew a couple people in the organization. And when someone first mentioned that maybe I should think about it, I had that same reaction.

I'm like, well, what the hell would a television journalist that CEDs do you have to offer something like agribition? You know, but the more I thought about it and the more I thought, well, okay, you know, in this organization's current history, there are a couple things that maybe I could help out with. And so I thought about that and I put it together. and it was it was a bit unnerving because it's you know CBC was the only career I'd ever known really to do such a different application of the things that I was that I was building as skills was you know that's a that's a big leap but it was exciting to and I think I was we've talked that maybe one of the themes in my own life here is there's an adventure on the horizon you know book ticket we're going to go so this was

was a pretty big adventure. And, you know, here's one thing about agribitionism. You have to, you know, it's not going to work if you, if you don't have an honest understanding and respect for the values in the industry of it. And coming from a place like Grand Prairie and having a family connected to agriculture and seeing it out my back window every day, you know, it's a pretty easy thing to be a champion for. I found for me in a part of the world in Regina that I had really grown to love. So to be a to be a champion for an industry that I loved in a place that I loved, it would you know, that was an exciting thing. So, uh, so I managed to convince a, a room full of, uh, you know, cowboys ranchers that the, that the journalist from CBC was the

right guy. And, uh, I know, yeah, that had to have been an interesting task, I bet. Yeah, you know, I probably didn't understand. I probably didn't respect how interesting it was at the moment. You know, I would say one thing about coming from CBC in my experience, you didn't fully understand what the rest of the world thought of you until you're out there. So anyway, you'll have to ask them how it's going, but so far I'm still collecting the paycheck. So I think I'm doing all right. Well, I'm curious, you get out of CBC and you do see how the world talks about CBC. You know, that's, that's, that's, You know, we've been going for a while and you knew coming on. It's one of the things I was really interested to talk about because especially out west, the CBC is viewed from a stance of it's corrupt.

It's, you know, it's a liberal propaganda machine. And I've sat here and chatted with you now, Chris, for close to an hour. And I don't get the feeling. and maybe I'm wrong and maybe I haven't asked the right questions. But I like to think that if it was going to come out, it would come out at some point. But you sit out staring and hearing the things. What are your thoughts on the CBC and whether it's a giant propaganda machine? Yeah, you know, honestly, working in it, you're not immune to that.

Like everybody, you kind of understand generally where the different political views on whether or not the CBC should even exist or not, right? So, you know, there's the segment of population who firmly, and I think, you know, not without their own evidence, would suggest that that's a total waste of taxpayer money, is that why we're funding a public broadcaster. But then you've got, I would say, an equally large, an equally vocal opinion on the other end of that extreme,

that says not only should we have a public broadcaster, and it's important to a national identity, every great country has a public broadcaster is that we should be funding at 10x more than it's getting now. So you've got those two on the extreme, but where most people land is somewhere in the middle, I think, around CBC. You know, I can tell you from my experience, and maybe I wasn't in the right rooms or not smart enough to be in the right rooms. But the idea that it was a propaganda machine is, you know, that was not at all in my experience, how the data. day operation went. We would feel we were doing a pretty good job if, you know, people on the right side thought that we were shills for the left side and the people on the left thought we

were shills for the right. If you generally had those kind of angry collars balancing out, that was generally, you were probably doing the right thing as a journalist. So, you know, I think, you know, in my experience, what, where that comes from or where it shows up is, not, you know, I can tell you from my own experience, is, you know, CBC is not necessarily full of people that have one ideology politically or otherwise. But what does tend to happen, what can tend to happen is you get at the, sort of at the assignment level, which is the editorial level, about what stories we cover and how, is what I noticed is that you get a, you get a geographic bias. And this can extend from your local newsrooms all the way up to,

to the national editorial system is the news happening where you live becomes the most important. So for an example, I've worked in newsrooms where lots of the people making editorial decisions lived in a couple core neighborhoods in the city. And so everything from an editorial lens kind of gets put through that lens. It's the lens they live.

It's the lens we live. And so, you know, if something's really important to that section of the city, it almost carries outsized weight in the editorial process. So in a place like Regina, you know, if I'm living in the suburbs and the biggest thing for me is whether or not I'm going to get my kids into swimming lessons because that's what all my neighbors are doing. That's we're young families. That's the part of the city we live in. But if I'm fighting for that as a new story, you know, in a system where 75% of the, you know, other editorial leaders live in a, you know, a more typically, you know, downtown sort of arts-based neighborhood. And, you know, there's a concern whether or not the, the heritage properties are going to be kept up to the same standards that they should. Like, that's where, that's where the

push and pull would come in my, in my experience. It's not because there was a whole bunch of of liberal apologists, you know, looking to work for the state media. It, if there was, if there was influence like that, it really came from people's personal lived experiences, I would say based on where they were from and where they were living and, and, you know, and how news stories came to be. The obvious news stories were covered no matter what, right? So you, you know, obviously a war or a natural disaster. It's pretty hard to, it's pretty hard to put that through a lens of your neighborhood. But those aren't most, those aren't what sucked up most of the airtime, right? As a producer, as a, as someone

whose job it was to make sure there was always enough stories, so that you didn't go off the air 15 minutes early, you know, part of my job was to come up with, with different things or different takes or different ways that we could cover something. And the whole, all media, CBC included, is full of those people. It's their job to, you know, it's their job to assign the stories and decide treatments and, and they're all people. How can they not be influenced by the people closest to them in their neighborhoods and where they really truly live? I'm curious, is it, I hope I ask this the right way. I assume CBC is just like any big corporation. You have top down directives,

push to, you know, the local leaders and then the local leaders push it down and whatever, right? Like, in your 15 years, were you allowed to report and talk however you wanted, I mean, within reason with language and everything else, but attack a story from any which way you wanted, or was there structure in certain ways, like, we just don't go talk about X, you know, and I don't know what X is, but in P-EI, you just don't do bad cover stories on person A or whoever else. You know what I mean? Like that type of influence? Yeah, I know what you're getting at.

And I can truly say, Sean, that that never happened. There were never ditches. Nobody got a, nobody, you know, that I know or even in my, you know, in my existence. By the time I left, you know, I didn't have a small amount of influence on what was happening on a day-to-day editorial basis. you know, if anybody thinks that you get a call from Ottawa and says this topic's off limits, CBC, that never happened. That would never happen. But do they feed, sorry, to hop in, I'm just, I'm trying to work this out in my brain as we go along. You get the major stories, right? Like a war, whatever the major headlines are. Do they come through like a feed deal? Like here it is. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's what your stories are. And you go, okay, does anybody want to take the war in or, you know, the U.S.S. pulling out of that.

Afghanistan for, you know, for obvious reasons right now. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And does somebody want to cover Scott Moe's going to the rider again? Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. And it does it get broken down that way or is it different than that? No, you know, you're probably closer than you think into how it works as is generally. And again, I'm speaking from my experience here and I haven't been there for five years. But I think generally, I think generally the day-to-day news gathering system works the way it always did.

And essentially you've got a, you know, it's a smaller group of people, first thing in the morning, that sort of goes through basically the headlines of the day. Here's some stories we've been working on that we think might air today. But here's some things that have happened today. Here's some news releases that have come in. And you start putting names and treatments beside these stories and whether that's a radio file or a web story or a television story in CBC's case. And you sort of, you know, the job entrusted to editorial leaders is, is, you know, build a fulsome and diverse editorial menu of stories that you can deliver throughout the day. And so, but what, and that is at the local level, that is entirely

decided at the local level. There's never, you know, what, in a place like CBC, what one of the benefits, benefits of being in a network is, is that, you know, you have a national sort of news gathering ability. And so, once a day, the national news gathering system from Toronto would say, here's the list of many, here's the list of story items that we've built today. If you want someone filing on something from Washington or you want a story out of Jerusalem, that's it.

You can take it if you want. If you don't, don't take it. Nobody ever decided or to find what you had to cover. I would say that. That's, we never experienced that. I certainly never did. I could take or leave those stories in a nightly newscast. as I saw it.

Yeah, no, I appreciate you. You kind of shining light on it. I think, you know, for the regular Joe, a couple things always stick out, right? Like, I think it was 2016. And we'll see if I get my years close to it. You know, the government giving the CBC somewhere around, you know, $700 million, right? And the criticism of that is obvious, right? Like, I mean, on one hand, it's a, it's a, it's publicly funded.

So in order to keep it going, if they're low on funds, the government has to step in, right? Like, okay. But on the other hand, the government's stepping in is like, how can you attack essentially the hand that is essentially keeping your job, if that makes sense? Like, I hope I'm putting that across right. So I think for the, for the common person, they stare at that and go, well, heck, I even stare at it. like how can you possibly write something if you just got a government bailout? I mean, that has to be awfully difficult. You know, I think optically that, you know, I have that same struggle, Sean, is that,

you know, and I would say lots of different media organizations have taken that over the years, right? That was a, that's, you know, whatever you call it, whether it's the local journalism initiative or it's an actual corporate bailout. Yeah, I think as a taxpaying Canadian, now on the other side of this, you know, that's generally not how I would choose my media to be funded on a bailout basis. I think it creates lots of opportunities for that discussion. I think, you know, one thing when I talk about not standing in anybody's light a little bit is that, you know, I had the privilege to work with and know a lot of people not only in CBC,

but across all different media companies here. And I have a hard time believing that the professionals that I know would let that get in the way of the journalism very easily. So, you know, I do have a bit of faith in the system and the people who have made this their life's work. That the only thing that journalists have is their credibility, which is why they'll defend it so vigorously and why it comes under such critique so vigorously.

and and you know I'm not you know really an apologist or defender for any particular media or at CBC for that matter I'm not there so that should tell you something but you know the the people who are you know have sort of decided that's what their life's work is going to be you know if they're bad at it or or you know feeling like they can't do the basics of the job because of you know, political interference or political funding, they would become bad at it. So I think it would self-select out a little bit. And I think one of the issues that that we do have around how we think of our media is that there's a difference, certainly within media, between the people who get paid to be columnists, opinion writers, and the people who get paid to be sort of impartial journalists, however, whatever you think the credibility of an impartial journalist is. And I think what's happening, though, is those two things are coming closer together by design.

Because when I was in media, it was pretty obvious that it was the opinion pieces where you could give people latitude to maybe poke a fire a little bit. That would sort of, that would get, it would get clicks. It would get people. It would get, it fires people up, right? I think you have entire radio stations built on opinion journalism, for example. So it resonates, right? It lets people have a voice and have a view, not just a statement of facts. And I think by design, opinion journalism and fact-based reportage, as they would say, reporting,

have become far more adjacent. And to my mind, it frustrates me because you can't blame the public then for getting that confused. If CBC, for example, has a lot more, is devoting a lot more time to, you know, personal points of view and essays and opinions, You can't blame people for thinking that the CBC reporting is more opinion-based and has more bias because that's what they're putting on it. And it's difficult, I think, to expect people if you're not, you know, if you're trying to play in both pools, that's what I would say. And so, you know, I don't know the way out of that, but I think that's what I see happening. And that's where the confusion is stemming from.

Yeah, people are smart enough to know what they're reading, but I think from a corporate point of view is that they become so next to each other that it's difficult, it becomes harder to separate them. And the people who write it will tell you that's not. They would say that, well, no, clearly we've got a bar on that that says that that's an opinion or that's an editorial. And newspapers have been doing that forever, right? The editorial page in a newspaper is different than the reporting you get on the front page. but you know i just think that that you really have a as a as a consuming public of news product

um we're drawn into things that elicit emotion that's what social media i'm just you can agree or disagree with this but the rise of social media is clickbait um finding things that that just omit a response immediately. And so what newspapers or news in general, CBC is not immune to this, is they've had to give their writers, I assume, more leeway then, to write more opinionated articles, whereas in the past that wasn't the case,

you'd have, like you say, opinion articles versus just reporting the news. And I hope I broke that down the proper way. Yeah, yeah, you're not off base there. I think what's happened in my experience was that, you know, even today you would get, I think people at CBC who are, you know, there's not a lot left anymore, but beat reporters, right? People who covered specifically sports or specifically politics or specifically city hall. You know, there's an effort once in a while to get those people who are very deep on that subject matter as reporters

to sort of provide analysis and coverage and analysis gets really even closer to opinion. and, you know, there are some that will say, no, I'm not doing that. Actually, that muddies the waters too much is that it's a difficult thing for, you know, for me to report on my beat objectively if once a week people are also getting an analysis piece out of me. So, or an opinion piece out of me. So, and I would say like the media sphere, you know, is served well from keeping analysis opinion and fact-based reporting all in the product offering.

But the danger to me is that you're clouding it a little bit when they get too close together. And even people in media, like I said, would say that's a bit too close for me. You know, with the federal election being announced, I got to go back then to what Vance Crow's question on Twitter was. And what are your thoughts on journalists having to disclose who they're voting for? Do you like that? Do you hate that? You're like, I wouldn't touch up with a 10-foot pole or, oh, that kind of makes sense, or what's your thoughts? No, I don't.

I think that is a, you know, that's a real fundamental part of our democracy is your ability to vote for whoever you want. And it's up to you as an individual to decide whether or not you're going to declare that. And I think, you know, there's pretty fundamental pieces around, around, again, every, Everybody's got their own opinion on how objective the news media is. But if you're starting to declare who you're voting for, you know, it will only stoke that fire not help it. And I think as engaged citizens, in my experience, you know, reporters and journalists are probably one of the most reliable set of voters that you could ask for because they're generally engaged in the world around them so much. You know, I would have to really ask, you know, what does it matter? What are we getting out of that?

Well, I would, I would counter with if you understood when you read an article, a critical piece of O'Toole or Trudeau or whoever, and I use those too, because I mean, obviously conservatives and liberals are the two big juggernauts in the federal landscape. If you knew a criticism of O'Toole was coming from a liberal voting journalist, Now, in one hand, you could argue, what does it matter what he's voting? In the other hand, you could say, well, it's a bias. And maybe he's writing the critical piece because he wants.

I mean, we just, we went through, we honestly just went through the American election. And I, I don't, I don't love to stray into different countries' elections, but the U.S., you know, as we all know, they're the superpower on the planet, or one of them. and to watch how their analysts dissected the candidates, it was really, shall we say, troubling. Because if they just said, listen, I'm pro-Biden, and this is why, I think I would have had more respect for it than them bashing on Trump, but not explaining some of the stuff they did.

Now, to hop back to our conversation, I think it would be, you know, you read or watch a whatever a piece on whether it's you know once again i'm using o two and trudeau if you know where the guy was coming from or woman then you could at least go okay they've acknowledged they have a bias but this is why it doesn't matter and you carry on and i could see why that'd be really beneficial i could but i'll challenge you on this let's let's get that movie to the end okay we do that let's say we we can agree that sure i'll buy the argument on that where do you think that would lead us in being able to read or consume anything that doesn't already align with

where we exist on the political spectrum. We already have this problem where we have become so polarized that we're generally unwilling to give a lot of time to someone. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, what do you think that would do to the national conversation? Nothing. Well, I would say nothing worse that isn't already happening.

but maybe I'm wrong on that, Chris. By all means, I'll agree with you. We listen to people that we agree with their thought process because it confirms what we're thinking or something along that lines. And I can understand how you don't want to read an opinion by a liberal, just a liberal, get it out of here. I don't want to read what they have to write.

But I also think trust is something that is earned and quickly fades like really quickly. And if you had my trust from the beginning and you just told me the way it was and explain why, you know, and just left all the cards on the table, I feel like that might foster the ability to listen to people instead of always wondering if there's a hidden agenda at all times. I wonder which way they're, you know, because everybody always critiques the other side all the times.

Maybe that wouldn't change anything. Doesn't that simplify it a bit? Like if the only agenda is how you vote, that seems awfully simple to me. Like I think there's a lot of nuance in there for people too, is that, you know, the way you view the world and issue by issue might not actually fit neatly in it, in whatever party platform of the day is out there. So, you know, if the idea is that you would expose, you know, whoever's authoring whatever piece of media you're reading based on where they vote politically.

You know, you've almost reduced anything that anybody has to say to their party affiliation. That's a good point. You know, I just think, I think the conversations that we need to have in this country are more complicated sometimes than, than what color a tie, you know, the leader you're voting for is wearing on Election Day.

And I think we're so far down the road of a, of a, echo chamber style media environment, thanks in no small part to social media, that the idea that journalists would have to declare their party affiliation, you know, that's far more communist Russia to me than sort of, then the argument that you would be making that we'd be finally free to understand, you know, where everybody's coming from. You know, like even in the conservative party, Sean, a vote for a conservative candidate in the West is very different than a vote for a conservative candidate in PEI. So, you know, how would a journalist, you know,

revealing their conservative vote necessarily, you know, help someone understand where they're coming from? That's what I was talking about, the geographic bias that exists. You know, no matter who you vote for, I can tell you the idea of government subsidies and support for things like seasonal fisheries workers is a very different level of support than it is in Western Canada in PEI. And I would say even though you'd get two people that would identify as conservative voters, for example, between Grand Prairie and Cardigan, P.E.I. voting for two different things entirely. Very different. And they would have, you know, entirely different views on that. So then I'll shift to this.

Because, you know, the reason I bring the question up is Vance had brought it up. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting thought, right? Like if you took out, if you showed everybody your bias at the start, then everybody can understand how there's a bias and carry on, right? Like, you know, so much of every, like this podcast, my podcast has a bias. has a bias to where I want to lead it, which means wherever it goes, that's where the audience has to follow if they want to fall along.

They don't have to, but they have to fall along with my bias. So by announcing the bias, I just, if that makes sense, I just assume that you've cleared the decks, you've got it out of the way. That's right.

And I don't mean that all of a sudden, now you just become a blue tie and a red tie. I mean, every issue on in Canada, there is a lot of compliance. complexity to it. But at the end of the day, when it comes to the vote, it simplifies into what party you're voting for and what they stand for. And it very much simplifies everything. That's all I was getting at. So I would also challenge you on this. So when you vote, do you, when you cast your

vote for your candidate and the party, is it an implicit endorsement of everything that that party stands for in its platform? Yeah, definitely not. So that's a difficult thing to apply to someone's written work as a journalist also is that even if you did declare what your most recent vote was at a federal level or provincial level, your city hall level, we've got to factor all that in. You know, are we assuming then that that is an endorsement of everything wherever that checkmark lands? And if they wrote something one year when they voted for a liberal in the next year, they switched their vote in conservative, you know, where do we think that lands? I understand the desire.

I understand the, what we're talking about here is an idea to sort of clean up public trust in media, right? Let people trust it more because I think what we can agree on is it's eroded, right? That's what we're, you know, we don't believe it like we used to believe it. You know, maybe that's part of the problem. And maybe that's a bit of the attack on the expertise right back to our conversation an hour ago. but I think we have to make sure that when we're talking about what issue we're talking about.

And so I am all for trying to find a way, you know, whether that's lifting the curtain, whether it's transparency. I personally don't have a ton of time for media bailouts and business. But, you know, all these things that hurt the public's ability to believe the media the way it did, that idea around public trust is not just a media issue. We deal, the term public trust is a strong one in agriculture right now. So I think, you know,

it's an industry-wide thing. It's a, it's a North America-wide thing. We have this erosion of public trust in our institutions, in our industries, and the people that are leading them. And so we have to be really introspective and ask ourselves, well, how did we get there? It probably wasn't because whether or not you're a farmer or a journalist that, you know, that your work has become so colored by your politics that it's unbelievable anymore. Probably what's happened is more nuanced and more complicated erosion of that in society. That's a big topic. It leads me to a conversation I've had behind, I don't know if I've had it on the podcast.

I may have had it on the podcast. I don't know. And I'll see what your thoughts are because you're a man who's been across Canada, worked in different provinces and so on. And you actually paint the picture very nicely that, you know, if you're a conservative in PI, a conservative in Alberta, are they voting for the same thing? No, they're not. They're in two different worlds. I've had people say, you know, and we got the Maverick Party out west, right, started up that is going to promote Western ideals, is not going to run across Canada,

is going to stick to its area and promote this and fight for this. And I've had discussions with different people saying Canada is so big and so diverse, we will never, ever agree. Because we're just so big and diverse that at some point whether it's in our lifetime or years into the future something like

a Western separation or I don't know if separation is the exact where it would go but just to have the ability to be more independent and focus on our needs and the East could focus on their needs

do you see then something like that as being beneficial or possible or something that would be worthwhile for Canada. Well, I, you know, I feel a big question. I understand it's a big question. You having some beers over this stuff. But, you know, I guess as a. Well, I tell you what, the next time you're in Loyn, Mr. We'll have you and we'll sit and have a couple beers.

Good. You know, I think the more, you know, when these parties come and go, because they've both come and gone in Canadian, is clearly that they're reacting to a, you know, to, you know, people aren't feeling that the traditional outlets are, are an effective voice for them. I think that's a really important part of democracy. I think, you know, you get into into political tactics and strategy at the high level around vote splitting and, and lots of worries around that, you know, but at the grassroots level, it's important to be able to have the ability to come up with a new party and a new voice that

represent something that isn't being represented. I mean, isn't that the ultimate engagement in democracy? Is that if we don't feel like, you know, there's a, there's a system that reflects things that are important to us in our space and in our time that we can create that. And I think, you know, so I would, you know, I would never discourage, you know, a diversity of voices and the political landscape. I think, again, I keep hitting on this thing. that is a whole ton of nuance in my experience in this country.

And one of the things that being a Westerner, being a proud Westerner, is that a common theme is that we have sometimes we get to have a hard time with our voice at the table. I think sometimes we have a hard time figuring how to express it in a way that lands well at the table too. And that's what all this, I think, you know, whether it was a reform party or social credits in Alberta or Maverick, you know, what we're not is we're not afraid to speak up if we think we've got something to say. And I think our struggle or our frustration is that it doesn't always make it all the way to the rooms we think it should be. Yeah, that her voice isn't as loud here, but maybe doesn't carry a little further. Yeah, that's right.

And I think it's, you know, your preamble to this topic is very true, is the geographic space. And, you know, if you overlay a country like Canada in Europe, you'd probably get like 15 or 20 different countries with very different, you know, goals. Cultural. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, we, we have that diversity here in Canada. But as a confederation, it's in a system that makes it pretty hard to be cohesive. So I think, you know, for me, I've kind of learned to love the incohesiveness of it.

I think I just made up a word, but the fact that what makes the West work and makes the West important is something that's hard to translate in other parts of the country sometimes. No matter how well we think other people should understand it, that's been one of the benefits of being able to live across this country. I think people on the East Coast would feel the same thing about their region. and really, you know, that's the struggle of the Confederacy of a country this large and diverse. But I think it, you know, and I will, my little plug for you here, Sean, is that I think it's really important to have outlets like what you're doing here. I think it's important to have a voice in a new media landscape that allows us to have these discussions, you know, in maybe a larger context, in a more productive context. There's not a lot of sense, you know, being frustrated and mad about a lot of things. I think what we have been able to do, you know, thanks to outlets like this is, you know,

is become a more serious voice at a table around some of the things in Western Canada that need to be national topics of conversation that sometimes aren't. Well, I appreciate that. I, listen, I think like a lot of things, it's a learning curve, right? Like this podcast has been going for I think it's about two and a half years now. And I didn't go to journalist school. Certainly have had my pitfalls and certainly have stumbled along the way. And some people might argue I'm still stumbling right now.

I'm not sure, Chris, but I'm enjoying every step. And I certainly enjoy having conversations like this with people who've lived in different spots. Certainly, you know, like I say, the CBC does not have a great name. when it comes to when it comes to journalist integrity, but I mean that specifically for the area I grew up in, just because people put things to really simple,

you know, government bailout, it doesn't look good, right? Like that just, you know, it doesn't help to Trudeau's the guy on the seat and that he's had more scandals in the last five years. And if either of us, in our current positions, had even one breath of any of those,

I don't think you'd be sitting where you're at, and I certainly can tell you I wouldn't be sitting where I'm at, right? And so it's an ever-evolving landscape, but I do appreciate you coming on and discussing it with me and being open to some of my questions because it can't be easy to have me try and pick it, you know, a place that you worked for 15 years and certainly you hold in high respect.

I mean, you're a guy who made a career out of interviewing and traveling the world and discussing. And I do find the topics very interesting, and I enjoyed your perspective. Well, I really appreciate it. Thanks, Sean. I'm happy to talk about this and whatever you want to talk about any time. I think the CBC is a tricky thing for folks.

It's a, you know, and in a lot of cases, it doesn't help itself either. You know, I've got plenty of critiques about, about, you know, how it works and how it runs and what it does and the place it can have. in communities and things, but, you know, I'm so far removed from it now. It's mostly like anecdotal rather than expertise. But, you know, I think what's important, though, around the CBC is that wherever you think on it is, you know, make it an active part of the conversation. You know, there's a very valid argument about there out there around whether or not it should

even exist. And if it did, is the business model, you know, to be funded by the government. to compete with private media companies. Like that's a big thing to get your head around, I think, for for people who run the CBC and for all of us who consume it or don't. You know, it's not a simple question. It's complicated and sometimes, you know, sometimes like I said, how it exists doesn't help itself, doesn't help its own cause sometimes.

Well, before I let you go, at the end, I always like to do the Kurdmaster final. five. It's just five, short, long, whatever way you want to go with it, Chris. There's just five questions. And I always start with, you know, you're a guy who got to cover a lot, go a lot of different places. But if you got to sit in my chair and could have anyone to sit across from and pick their brain, who would you take? Oh, man. That's quite a question. Can we come back to that one? Can I think about that one? What's your next question? You can certainly think about it. My next question Who did you get to sit with that was thought provoking? So I actually had a chance to visit with Henry Kissinger once while I was doing an assignment

really early on in my career. And it wasn't like a formal interview style or anything, but we did happen to be in the same room at the same time and share a bit of conversation. And I thought, in the moment, I thought, you know, this is a guy who's seen and had a hand in a lot of significant events, you know, really pre my time, but things that really shaped sort of the modern Western world. And again, he's a, he's a polarizing guy. You can sort of like his legacy or kind of hate what he did. But I think for someone like that who's as Secretary of State at a very consequential time in American history. I thought, you know, this is this is a pretty cool thing to be sharing a space with a

guy that's clearly, uh, had to think about some things that are substantial. Did he say anything when you were sitting with them that just, you know, not caught you off guard, but made you think? Well, not specifically. And I think that's, that's what really caught me is that you could just tell that there was a, a significant amount of life experience and, um, you know, an ability to, to think deeply about complicated things that, you know, just in the way that the conversation, was going at the table. And that's what struck me is that, you know, clearly here's someone who's seen and done a lot of things and thought deeply about many different things. So that was a pretty neat experience. If somebody were to Google Chris Lane and you could look through your

history of written articles, is there one where you're like, go back to this one? Well, I didn't do a ton of writing. My career was TV production pretty quick. But You know, I would go back to one of the first articles that I ever wrote for when I was living in London about piracy. And it was kind of on a lark and it became, you know, quite a well-stirculated article because at that time, there was a lot of concern about an uptick in modern pirates off the coast of Sudan. And it was really interesting for me from a personal perspective to start researching something that was like you couldn't pick a topic or a space. that was further away from my experience growing up in Grand Prairie, Alberta. And it really was interesting the way that I was able to learn about all the risks to the modern shipping and supply chain.

And that's when I started realizing that the job of a journalist is actually not to be the expert in anything. The job of the journalist is to start finding the people who know the things that can explain it in a way so that people who are also not experts might have a better understanding about the world around them. That is like a great explanation of a journalist. I think of it as you're going where curiosity takes you now. For somebody who worked for a news organization,

it's probably a little more like this is where we need to go, right? We need to explore these topics. But that's exactly what you're doing. You're exploring them and you're finding the people who can shed some light on what the hell actually is going on. Because for most people, they didn't grow up in the region where there was piracy going on and know exactly how to explain it, right? that doesn't happen. Yeah, that's right. And I think back to our other conversation about the

difficulty that some journalists find around credibility right now is, you know, is if they blur that a little bit, if they try to become the expert themselves, that's a dangerous road, because that's really not your job, in my opinion. How about a book? Are you a guy who reads? Okay. What has been a book that has influenced the way you think? I would say the book that has probably done more for me that way is The Sun also rises by Ernest Hemingway. I'm a pretty big Hemingway fan. And that one I've probably read 10 times in my life. And I think you've read it 10 times. Yeah. How long of a book is it? It's not a very long book. I think a couple hundred pages. Okay. You know, but if, you know, Hemingway writes such in a distinctive

manner and I think he writes the male character really well. So, you know, and it's probably a bit antiquated by today's standards. I don't know if it would be all that politically correct, but that's fine with me. And I think there's a lot about in what Hemingray writes around, I think, how men see the world and how we go through it and what our responsibilities and obligations and struggles and all that are. And so the sun also rises is a, to me, is a fantastic story. It's part travel log. It's part male introspection. It's part, it's part adventure. Yeah, I think a lot about that book actually. Dang. Now you're going to make me go read. Okay. Well, that's, I ask these questions because I'm always like,

and maybe there's a good book. I haven't read. Well, I haven't read it. So if you've read it 10 times, dear God, it looks like I know what I'm doing. I mean, it's taken me a long, you know, I said early on that I'm just reading The Alchemist. And it's been on my list for a long time. And I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Like, it's really good. So if you've read something that many times, chances are I'm going to have to dabble and I'll have to hit you back up.

If it isn't good, I'm going to let you know about it. But chances are, chances are I won't be disappointed. People who don't like Hemingway really don't like it. So if it's not a style of writing that strikes you right away, I wouldn't fault you for giving up on it. Here's a fun one. If you were, you know, the agribition is going to have a celebrity boxing match before one of its events, all right?

And in one corner is Chris Lane. And in the other corner is any celebrity of your choose and who you take and the square off from. Oh, man. Any, well, I'm not a very big guy. So whoever it is can't be very big. So otherwise I just get my ass kicked. You know who I would like to box? Tom Cruise.

really yeah you sure he's he's got a side of crazy in there that i mean i know i'm not saying i would win but uh you know i think uh i it just seems like the kind of guy and i like him i like his movies but boy if you could if you could just connect on him and it seems like sometimes he needs needs a bit of sense maybe i don't you know tom cruise is an interesting one because i also too am a fan I've also seen the clips where you're just like, man, what are you doing? Like, I don't get it. But then I've also seen like the extent, you know what I love about a podcast is like, I just, it's uncut.

Like this is uncut. People are going to get, whether they follow this along this far or not is, you know, I got to give a show to all my listeners because they always do. They always talk about the ads and whatever else. But what I love about a podcast, it's uncut. You get the conversation. Nothing's edited out. snipping two words of Chris talking about CBC and then that's going to be the headline.

Don't get me wrong. There's going to be a snippet that goes on on social media to do exactly what it's supposed to do, promote what we talk about. But Tom Cruise did himself zero favors on things like Oprah, where we all saw him, lose his mind about Katie Holmes. And, you know, he's had his moments for sure. But I listened to a couple of his, like, you know, like unedited. interviews and he says a lot of smart things in there too where i'm like he's actually a really smart

guy why on earth is he going so like off the deep end at certain points in his life yeah i think you should have a scientologist on and you can ask them that question you should have a whole thing about scientology you think they'd come on i'm sure you're sean newman of course they'd come on i wouldn't i like that i like that all right well Can we go back to the first one? I will take your suggestion of Scientology. I'll see what I can do with that. And who would you sit down with?

Have you thought anyone? Yeah, I think, you know, honestly, I'm a pretty big fan of American history and the culture and sort of, you know, modern politics in America. I think George Bush, George W. Bush, that's who I would pick. Yeah. I actually, you know, honestly, I think he got a, I think he got a reputation that he probably didn't deserve in his presidency as being simple and being, and, you know, maybe some of that was politically expedient. Maybe that was, maybe that was some of the image that they figured that he needed to be cast in to be able to be as populist as he was. but I have a feeling that George W. Bush is, you know, is a lot smarter and a lot more reasonable than I think some of the unfair characterizations of him. So I would sit down with him. I think we'd have a good chat.

That'd be interesting. You ever pull that off? Make sure you record it, all right? Sure. Well, I appreciate you coming and sitting with me tonight. Chris, go back to your wife and enjoy being married and everything else. And once again, thanks for hopping on. You bet. We'll see you to agribition, right? When is that? November 22nd. We're doing it.

Well, as long as they haven't forced us to not be able to travel, you know, the five hours from here to Regina. Yeah, I think that would be a lot of fun. Great. We'll see you then. Sounds good. See you, John. Hey, folks. Thanks for joining us today.

If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Kieners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I got to give a shout out to Chad from Lloyd Minster, wherever you're hiding.

He sent me a text after episode 192 with Roger Hodkinson, a lot of you. have, you know, feelings one way or another about Roger and what he talked about. I know I've received tons of feedback on both sides. And Chad had said, you know, episode 192 with Roger is really difficult to listen to. I'm only halfway and I'm not sure I can finish. And we went back and forth. And then the next morning, after we text for a while, he texts back the next morning and said, I listened to the second half of Roger.

much better than the first, gives more context on how he thinks and his beliefs. My brain is also filled up like yours. And then we went back and forth. And I thought it was really cool. You know, like most people, when they disagree with something, don't finish it. And I'm even putting myself in that realm. It's hard to listen to something when you're like, man, this guy sucks. Or, you know, I just don't believe what they're talking about.

And Chad had sent back. I think it's really important to listen, even if you don't agree. gives you a much better perspective. Too many of us are consuming information on only what we want to hear. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy your podcast. And I certainly enjoy getting texts and having you fine listeners, you know, sending me messages back and forth and telling me what you actually think. It's really cool to hear what, you know, what's going on with you guys

and to get the feedback of like, I didn't enjoy it. I did enjoy it. And telling me why. I think it's super important. and I really appreciate Chad sticking with it and getting through it because then our conversation, we can actually have a conversation about it because when you don't finish things,

it's hard to understand what the entire guest was about and what he wanted to talk about. If you're sitting here listening to me chat after a full podcast, you get that. So I appreciate all you guys. I hope you have a great week. We're going to catch up to you on Wednesday when we're going to have another archive episode

coming up which is going to be awesome and you know have a great week Wednesday hump day we're going to catch up to you and go out and have a great day all right thanks guys