Sheila Gunn Reid exposes CBC’s $1.2–$1.3B taxpayer-funded agenda, including CBC Kids’ progressive messaging on climate, pronouns, and pipelines, while criticizing the NDP’s 2023 press conference ban against journalists like Alex Dollywall, who asked about crime rhetoric from Rod Loyola and Drew Farrell in 2016. Viewer letters highlight media bias toward Trudeau, and Reid corrects wage claims—PSAC unions sought 13.5% raises, not 4.5%, while Alberta’s oil workers face economic strain. The episode underscores how state-aligned media and selective press access distort public discourse, leaving independent voices silenced. [Automatically generated summary]
I think you were probably expecting the melodious tunes of Ezra Levant, but he's off today and I'm filling in for him on the big show.
Now tonight my guest is Alex Dollywall.
He's our Alberta-based newswriter talking about how he was thrown out of the NDP press conference the other day.
Welcome to Rebel News, Alex.
And then I'm discussing all the other ways that CBC gets taxpayer-funded money from you that you probably didn't know about.
It's not just the subsidy and it's not just their ad revenue.
There's other ways that they reach into the pockets of Canadians, specifically this time to brainwash your kids.
Now, if you like listening to the show, and I think you do, you're probably going to love watching it, but in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's what we call our premium content here at Rebel News.
You get access to Ezra's nightly Ezra Levant show, my weekly gun show, as well as other premium content like our documentaries.
And you also get exclusive behind the scenes content.
Like the documentary content.
There's some fun stuff.
If you want to see me chasing seagulls, make sure you become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's only eight bucks a month.
I think that's it.
Thanks for tuning in, guys.
enjoy the show.
CBC has an absolute freak out about being forced to acknowledge its funding sources while taking money from sources you may not know about.
Then Rebel reporter Alex Dollywall joins us to talk about being thrown out of a press conference here in Alberta by the NDP.
It's April 19th, 2023.
I'm Sheila Gunread, but you're watching the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
The state broadcaster CBC is having a total meltdown about being appropriately labeled as state-funded media.
If you missed it, well, frankly, that's okay, because ratings indicate that it's basically a statistical rounding error of Canadians who consume CBC content on the regular, especially CBC's flagship news content.
No one watches the CBC.
I think maybe, maybe, it's just grandparents who don't know how to change the channel after falling asleep watching curling.
The best thing that grandkids can do for their grandparents these days is teach them how to use the remote control so that they can see and experience the world outside of the CBC.
Please, little kids, this is the Lord's work.
Listen to Auntie Sheila.
But back to the meltdown, which I think Ezra did a great job covering on Monday's show.
And I'm not just saying that because he's my boss, although, like, it kind of helps.
CBC went on a long Twitter diatribe about how they should not be considered government-funded media because although they are quite literally government-funded media to the tune of about $1.2,
$1.3 plus billion dollars each year, the CBC claims they should be let off on a technicality on this rule because Twitter's policy indicates that government-funded media may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.
Not that it does, but it may, and I think that's accurate for the CBC.
But really, why the resistance to transparency, CBC?
You do take government money and a lot of it, and people should know that about you.
That government-funded, state-funded label should be slapped all over CBC content as though it were a cigarette warning label.
Careful before you consume.
Now in response, the crybullies at CBC have decided that they are going to stop publishing content on Twitter.
They use a turn of phrase my mom was famous for using, quit threatening me with a good time.
Now, apparently benevolent libertarian billionaire, new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, continues to make Twitter a better place every single day, doesn't he?
Now, another tantrum thrown by the CBC stems from Elon Musk conceding that, okay, fine, CBC does get advertising dollars.
So instead of just a plain government-funded label, they're going to get a label of being 69% government-funded.
It's a beautiful and epic troll of the sad sack subsidy gobblers at the state broadcaster.
It's really quite something to see.
Elon Musk is doing more to push the well-kept whiners at the CBC around and put them back in their place than the Conservative opposition has ever done in this country, even when the Conservative opposition was in government.
It's gorgeous to see.
And it's good to remind the CBC that while they're treated like some sort of national treasure by the establishment class here in Canada, they're just some sickly little minnow swimming in somebody else's very big pond.
And in the grand scheme of things outside of Canada, they're quite inconsequential.
And it stings, it stings these people to hear it about themselves.
It's like a crucifix to a vampire to remind CBC just how nobody outside of Canada cares about them.
And the only reason we care about them in Canada is that we're forced to care about them because they keep taking all of our money.
Anyway, all of this whining and crying and gnashing of the teeth from the CBC inspired me to take a poke around at some of the other ways that these people receive funding outside of the 1.3-ish billion in annual taxpayer subsidies and that roughly 30 or 31% of their budget that they get in ad revenue that they scoop from private sector broadcasters.
Did you know that these absolute panhandlers at the CBC also take advantage of the Canadian Media Fund?
Did you even know there was a Canadian Media Fund?
It's just another subsidy vehicle for failing media companies.
It's normally not meant for the likes of the CBC, but that of course has not stopped the CBC from putting their grubby hands into that pot too.
And in this instance, the CBC reached into the Canadian Media Fund to create content to brainwash your kids.
Have you been to CBC Kids lately?
Of course not, because nobody has.
Nobody.
But if you have them in there, let me explain it to you.
It's a cluttered feed of climate change nonsense, why Donald Trump is mean, why people should be allowed to just stroll across the border at Roxham Road, why hockey players should wear pride jerseys, why pipelines are bad, and why you should confuse yourself with pronouns.
And it's all wrapped in kid-friendly colors.
It's targeted at other people's kids using other people's money to brainwash other people's kids into the political ideology of the liberals.
But the money CBC already receives to brainwash adults has not been quite adequate enough to brainwash the kids.
Now they need more.
This is why just last year, outside of all the subsidies that the CBC already receives and the ad dollars that they already get, CBC received nearly a million dollars from the Canadian Media Fund specifically for CBC kids in two separate grants.
One for a quarter of a million dollars for what looks like video production and a second grant for $700,000 to, I guess, maintain that very cluttered, kid-friendly social justice website.
Do you ever wonder how many hits that website gets after school hours?
You know, after social justice brainwashing teachers are no longer on the clock directing youngsters to go to that page as some sort of credible resource.
How many kids are actually visiting that site on their own out of curiosity?
Or even better, how many parents are directing their kids to visit that site on their own?
Probably as many people watch the six o'clock news on the CBC, as in almost none.
Why We Can't Ask Questions00:15:46
Stay with us after the break.
Rebel News, Alberta-based newswriter Alex Dollywall joins us to discuss what it's like to not work for the CBC, which means he got banned from an NDP press conference.
We'll be right back.
You know, it's tough out there for an independent journalist.
If you're not the CBC, you don't get preferential treatment.
You don't get subsidies.
You actually have to work to get access to the politicians so that you can hold them to account on behalf of the people.
And this week, when one of our Rebel News journalists was trying to do exactly that, his job and ask politicians tough questions, he was barred from reporting.
That happened to our journalist, Alex Dollywall, when he went to cover a Rachel Notley press conference.
Now, Rachel Notley, for those of you who don't know, and I don't know how you couldn't, she was the former premier here in Alberta, and she's the leader of the official opposition.
She's an NDP socialist, and she doesn't like independent media.
She's got a long history of that.
And she showed us that her history of barring journalists, it's being repeated in real time.
Take a look at this.
But what kind of message does that send if certain official opposition is telling Albertians which media can and can't ask questions?
I can't speak to that.
I understand you're doing your job.
I can understand that.
But I just came here to ask questions respectfully of the members opposite.
I'm not here to start trouble.
And neither is the gentleman that you were speaking to earlier.
So, I mean, what's the harm in asking questions?
I understand that.
Again, this is just this area is what they've booked.
So I can't really.
Yeah.
And who exactly, who specifically said that certain members of the press can't tell me?
I couldn't say that.
Couldn't say that?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's unfortunate.
So joining me now is that journalist, Rebel News journalist, Alex Dollywall, I guess, getting his initiation into being a Rebel News journalist.
Alex, how's it going?
Thanks for joining me.
Yeah, thank you, Sheila, for having me on the program.
It's my pleasure.
And I say jokingly that that's your Rebel News initiation, but it really is.
Because back in 2016, I was thrown out of a press conference by Rachel Notley.
It was a joint press conference with her and Justin Trudeau at the legislature.
I'm a lifelong Albertan.
I'm an Alberta journalist.
I went there to ask some questions to hold these two politicians to account on behalf of the people.
And I was tossed out by an armed sheriff.
Now, at the time, most of the independent media in Alberta were actually leftists.
So I was sort of kind of new on the scene.
And they tossed me out.
Before I get to you, Alex, let's just show a clip of that right here.
We already spoke to Darcy Hinton.
He said there should be no problem for coming.
Sorry, why is that?
Sorry, why?
Alex, we are, as I say, known for getting thrown out of things.
And it's not because of our bad behavior.
You couldn't have been calmer.
What were you going there to do?
What was the press conference about?
So, Sheila, the press conference really was about the NDP trying to make a ploy to why supporters should, or why voters in the upcoming provincial election should vote for them versus the UCP.
They intended to make some funding commitments and what they would do to address the vacancy rate in downtown Calgary.
Now, one of the issues that we've seen exacerbated in recent weeks, particularly in the downtown core, is rampant crime.
Notably, we've seen a number of fatal shootings and stabbings.
In particular, we saw a fatal shooting occur just outside of the Chinese consulate.
So, take that for what it's worth.
And my job, or I intended to go to the conference just to ask two simple questions: one, what would the Alberta NDP do differently than the UCP?
Because if we're going to address the rampant wave crime that's hit Canadians right across the board, West Coast to East Coast, then surely we should be having these difficult conversations regardless of partisan stripe.
And secondly, I was going to ask if Rachel Notley, leader of the Alberta NDP, would apologize on behalf of some of the anti-police rhetoric that some of her candidates have said in the past.
I'll give you a couple of examples here, Sheila.
So, NDP MLA Rod Loyola had made a Facebook post about 2012, about a decade ago, where he said having a police badge in Edmonton is licensed to quote-unquote beat up people.
But here's the ticker: what we heard from Drew Farrell, a former Calgary City Councilwoman, was far worse.
What she said was that she wouldn't be surprised if suspected incidences of domestic violence within households of law enforcement went underreported because, quote-unquote, police officers bring a sick rage with them to their households, which is just mind-boggling to me why we would even attempt to demonize those who do their best to protect our communities and keep us safe.
Sure, we want to hold those who abuse the power accountable, but you can't have that honest conversation when you are demonizing an entire police force.
It's just patently absurd to me.
But, you know, it was unfortunate.
I never got to ask those questions because, you know, first of all, the NDP press briefer on Monday was delayed about 30 minutes.
You know, myself, Kian Bexte from Counter Signal, and Nigel Hannaford from Western Standard were there.
And while Nigel wasn't kicked out, Kian and I were.
And, you know, I went quietly.
I did have a calm conversation with the security guard.
Listen, hey, I'm not here to stir up trouble.
I'm here to just respectfully ask questions because, as members of the free press, I think we have a right to ask those questions on behalf of not only our viewers, but on behalf of the broader public.
And it was unfortunate I didn't get to ask those questions.
And as we've seen through the video clip that I recorded, this isn't just a one-off situation where independent journalists get booted out.
It's, you know, this has happened consistently, especially over the past five, six years, where we've seen state-owned media be incentivized to essentially just propagate what the government wants them to do.
And when we, as independent journalists, want to present an alternative side of things, not necessarily a conservative spin on things, but an alternative side to the story, we're canceled for it.
And it just boggles my mind because we simply just want to add to the, we just want to add to the conversation, add those different perspectives so that we can have a more well-rounded discussion moving forward on serious issues.
But it doesn't seem like the NDP want to have that because they want to control the narrative rather than actually solve the issues at hand.
And, you know, what we saw on Monday was just evidence of that.
You know, I'm glad you mentioned the questions that you wanted to ask and the very real problems happening in the major cities here in Alberta.
And it does stem from progressive policies.
So you went there with real, clear, concise questions on issues that matter to Albertans.
We know what the UCP are doing to address crime in the downtown cores in both of our major cities.
They're deploying extra sheriffs to try to help to try to get a handle on it.
You wanted to know what the NDP would do and what they're going to do to address the anti-police rhetoric in their own party.
So you went there prepared with very real questions.
You weren't there to cause a scene.
We never are, actually.
Even when we're getting booted out, we're like, for example, when I got booted out, I think I apologized three times.
And I'm like, wait a minute, you're kicking me out.
We go there to do our jobs, to ask questions, to show that there is more than one homogeneous viewpoint on all these issues.
And we weren't even given that opportunity.
You were not disruptive.
You were polite, but the NDP didn't want to hear from you.
And I noticed Rachel Notley tweeting, I think it might have been yesterday or even early this morning, saying, oh, and here I am.
I took lots of questions from journalists.
Yeah, it's pretty easy to take lots of questions from journalists when you kick out all the prickly ones before they even get started.
And they accused the Western standard, by the way, of being racist and sexist, I think.
I don't think they could have gotten away with accusing you of that for obvious reasons.
But, you know, they didn't even let you get in the door to ask those questions.
And you're so right to point out that we're not there to even push a conservative agenda.
We're just there to ask questions on behalf of the people who can't.
Yeah.
And, you know, I just want to state for the record that, you know, the conversation I did have with the security guard, you know, I understand that he was just doing his job.
And I just want to say that I hold no grudges against him.
You know, he's just doing his job and wanted to make sure that the event that the NDP had booked went smoothly.
But, you know, I did pose to him, you know, as members of the free press, why is it that we can't ask questions?
Is it because we're part of media that the NDP knows that they won't get softball questions from?
Is it media that they know they can't, you know, coerce into funneling a certain narrative?
The reason he gave to me was because the NDP had made a private booking and therefore I wasn't invited.
So naturally in a free society post-COVID, we can't ask those tough questions because we're not the right type of people, right type of journalists to be asking questions because we can't be controlled in any which way.
You know, and I want to ask you, because obviously this happened in full view of other journalists, or at least they were aware of what's happening.
I don't know how they couldn't be at this point.
I think it was in 2020, they had a witch trial for me and Kian Becky, when he still worked for Rebel News, the legislature press gallery.
They decided that we couldn't join their stupid little club and sit in their stupid little office with them and share their stupid little Wi-Fi.
So we went around them and got accredited through the speaker's office because we don't think our competitors should control the monopoly on access to politicians at the legislature.
We don't work for them.
We work for the people of Alberta.
I'm just curious, were, you know, like these people normally whine about mean tweets directed at them.
That's the big violence committed against them.
And they had been whining earlier about the current premier, Daniel Smith, only taking one question and no follow-up because how many times can people who work for the same companies ask the same questions to the same woman post-media CBC?
So they were whining.
They said that was an affront to democracy.
The NDP were whining about that, saying limiting questions is, you know, an attack on our democracy and the free press.
Any of these people have anything to say as you guys were shown the door or no?
No, not one said a goddamn thing.
And, you know, Kian and I and a, I forget the gentleman's name, but he's the reporter from the columnist at the Calgary Sun.
Sorry, is Rick Rick Bell.
Rick Bell.
Yes.
I like Rick.
Rick.
Yeah, you know, he was really friendly with both Kian and I.
And it was nice that even though after everything that had happened, he was still willing to just approach us and just have a simple conversation.
You know, sometimes that's all it takes.
You know, I get it.
We're all here to do a job.
And, you know, it's, you know, what really, I guess, pisses me off more than anything is not the lack of access, but the fact that many members of the press think we're not worthy of having a voice, not worthy of asking questions because it controls their monopoly on being able to control what information gets disseminated to the public or not.
And, you know, in light of what we're seeing with Bill C11 being rammed through the Senate, it's alarming to see that in a secular democracy such as Canada, that here we are in a post-COVID reality where certain content may be censored by the government because it's deemed offensive or deemed as disseminating misinformation and disinformation, which Rebel News has been accused of, unfortunately, by Dictator Chudeau himself.
So take that for what it's worth.
But it's, you know, it's just unfortunate that we just can't have a peaceful exchange of ideas.
That's all we want.
Yeah, that really is all we want, a civil exchange of ideas and a recognition that there is a diversity of viewpoints in this country.
These people prattle on about diversity in the workplace and diversity of this and diversity of that.
But what they mean is checking identity boxes.
They really don't mean people holding different viewpoints peacefully in the same area as you.
You couldn't even be a conservative journalist in the room with Rachel Notley and those other journalists because Lord knows they would never take your question, as we saw with the treatment that the Western Standard received.
For you, even your mere presence was offensive to them.
And I think shame, shame on the mainstream media who really don't believe in press access at all.
They really don't.
They don't believe in the principles that they need to do their job.
They really don't.
I'm proud to say at Rebel News, we believe that even the people we disagree with are entitled to human rights.
I'll give you an example of this.
There's a leftist journalist, I guess you could call him that, 50-50 activist, 50-50 journalist.
I don't think we need to mention his name, but he was kicked out of Jason Kenney's press conferences.
And you know what we did?
We provided to him our legal arguments that we'd submitted to what they called the Boyd Report.
That was when Rachel Notley kicked me out of the legislature in 2016.
There was an investigation and it was called the Boyd Report afterwards.
We gave him our legal arguments, just gave it to him.
He's an ingrate, didn't thank us, used him fine and dandy, still is a vicious attacker of everything that we do here at Rebel News and of conservatives in general.
Fine, whatever.
But We care about freedom more than we dislike that little ingrate.
And, you know, I'm proud of that.
You know, you don't want to help your enemy all the time.
But in the interest of freedom, sometimes you do have to help your enemies.
And the other side just doesn't believe that at all.
They don't believe in freedom for people they disagree with.
Why We Defend Freedom00:07:44
Yeah.
And, you know, it's a shame because I had a conversation with my buddy Tereka not too long ago.
And, you know, I posed this idea to him that the only reason progressives are perhaps the far left side of that, of the progressive part of Canadian politics, the reason why they are so accepting of bringing so many immigrants to the country, you know, as being a son of an immigrant who came from India.
I say this with utmost compassion.
You know, the reason why they want so many people to come here is because they want to feed them all this nonsense about diversity, equity, inclusion, which is just a bunch of left-wing puff words that really just make us feel good in the moment.
But in reality, it hides the ulterior motives that we're seeing currently, which is that they bring people over here that have faced incredible adversity in their own way and come here and indoctrinate their kids into, you know, abandoning their faith, abandoning perhaps traditional values that many of them have, and to push them into a corner where they have to accept and agree with in its entirety certain viewpoints.
And if they do not, then they're canceled, they are marginalized.
And in some cases, depending on your faith or your skin color or orientation, then you're considered a traitor to your kind.
You're considered a traitor to your ethnic group.
And sort of this collectivist way of thinking is what has destroyed so many countries in the past and is partly the reason why my family left India as well, because of the religious and ethnic conflict there.
You know, that's unfortunately at a time where, you know, different groups weren't able to peacefully coexist.
We came to Canada thinking that would be possible.
And it's unfortunate because the government here is picking winners and losers.
And if even if you're part of a quote-unquote marginalized group, you're still canceled because of your conservative viewpoints.
And just to point it out there, a lot of new immigrants are perhaps even more socially conservative than naturalized or Canadians who are born here on many issues, such as abortion, such as what they perceive as sin and what have you.
And so not being able to have these conversations, you know, when it comes to freedom of speech and being able to practice their faith peacefully, it's, you know, it's outrageous because that's what's going to happen when we see legislation such as Bill C-11, when we see certain members of the press being kicked out.
You know, this is just the beginning of a downward trend to living in a quasi-authoritarian state.
You know.
No, I agree with you.
And it's funny because as you were speaking, I thought, you know, sometimes these diversity quota goals are truly the bigotry of low expectations from you point out rightly that many new Canadians have overcome diversity just to get here and followed the rules, by the way, to get here.
And then the liberals and progressives think they can't integrate fully into Canadian society without special lowered expectations for them.
I think it reveals the bigotry of the other side.
Alex, thank you so much for your hard work trying to hold Rachel Notley to account.
I'm sure you'll be doing more of that on the campaign trail as we rapidly hurdle headfirst into the next election.
Please, Calgary, don't blow it for us.
And thank you for graciously undergoing your initiation into becoming a fully fledged Rebel News journalist by getting kicked out of a press conference.
Yeah, no, my pleasure, Sheilan.
Thank you for having me on the program.
Thanks.
Your letters to Ezra, or maybe Tamara, maybe David Menzies, up next after the break, unceremoniously read by me.
Stay with us.
You know, friends, I should have mentioned in my interview with Alex that if you want to stand with him and other independent journalists, and if you want to send a message to Rachel Notley, I suggest you head on over to Notleyisabully.com and sign the petition there.
And I promise you, we're going to make sure that ends up on Rachel Notley's desk before the election.
We want to send a strong message to her that Albertans care about press freedom and holding our politicians to account, all politicians.
And let's make sure that petition is widely signed because not only is it a message to Notley, but it's also a message to the mainstream media that they should have done something to stand up for their competitors, for their colleagues, for their peers.
But instead, they stood idly by and let the free press in Alberta be stomped all over by a petty little hypersensitive wannabe tyrant named Rachel Notley.
Well, friends, this is also the portion of the show where we address your viewer feedback.
We read your letters.
And, you know, unlike the mainstream media, and I say it on all the shows that I host, we actually care about what you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News because without you, there is no Rebel News.
We don't take a penny from Justin Trudeau.
So it matters to us what our viewers think about the work that we do.
And we welcome constructive criticism, which I think is the point of the first letter.
Now, it's on Tamara Ugalini's monologue yesterday.
She talked about Justin Trudeau's ongoing attacks on free speech and the free press here in Canada.
And I think she did an excellent job, by the way.
Tamara is such a talent and such a help to me, but also to all of us here at Rebel News.
Very level-headed, very smart, very analytical.
Tyson writes, you know me, I'm a big fan, but tonight's show sucked.
You just would not stop showing replays of Trudeau being a turd.
Yes, we get it.
He sucks.
Way too much of that.
Why are you ruining my evening?
I literally turned the show off, just honest feedback.
Well, you know what, Tyson.
I don't know if you know, but Tamara didn't know that you would be watching.
But I appreciate your feedback.
And I know that it can be a bit much watching Justin Trudeau, I know, since it's my job to watch Justin Trudeau, but I think it is important to always, always show how bad he is because the mainstream media just won't.
If a conservative had said just a smidge of what Justin Trudeau said that you took umbrage with last night, you would never hear the end of it.
It would be on a loop on all the mainstream media outlets.
But they don't show Justin Trudeau because he is their sugar daddy.
And that's it.
So while it might be uncomfortable to hear things that you don't want to hear, it's the God's honest truth and people deserve to see it all laid out for you in a neat, tidy little monologue like what Tamara showed you last night.
Now, on the flip side, Alan R. Wallace writes, Tamara Ugalini was an excellent host for the Ezra Levant show.
Yeah, I know.
I agree.
She's calm, well composed, and asks pertinent questions.
All the best.
Yeah, she's excellent.
Alan, I agree with you.
I also echo Tyson's sentiment that Justin Trudeau can be a bit much, but Alan, I think Tamara did an excellent job laying it all out for us.
Now, more letters.
This one's on Ezra's interview with Franco Terrazano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I believe that was Monday's show.
Matthias W. writes: Two issues of correction on the interview with Franco of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Union Demands Misrepresented00:04:00
I'm pretty sure I heard Franco say that the PSAC, that's the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the major federal public sector union, was asking for 45%, not 4.5%, unless my audio is bad.
The second number is closer to the truth.
They're asking for 13.5% over the past three years.
That's an enormous amount of money in a very bad economy.
And we're initially counter-offered 8.2% over four years, but the final offer was 9% over three years, reportedly.
Here's where we get into the rub.
Now, as a private industry worker, I'm okay with the higher number.
I received range adjustments of 2 plus 2 plus 3.5 plus 3.5% over the past three years, plus this current year.
Okay, well, that's the thing.
Your company can bury your raise.
Canada's broke.
We're spending out of control.
And there used to be a trade-off with the public sector that they were to make a little less money than the private sector, not see those enormous raises that sometimes in the good times you can see in the private sector.
And the trade-off was job security and benefits.
But that trade-off has long since gone.
They're getting everything now and everything that the people who pay their salaries cannot get because the people who pay their salaries live in a completely different reality.
Anyway, let's go on.
Second, even though the PBO, that's a parliamentary budget office, said the average public service wage is $125,000.
That's not these 120,000 PSAC workers who average 40 to 65,000.
Not sure about the 35,000 CRA workers.
Holy heck, that's a lot of tax collectors.
So some of these folks in the public sector are getting a lot of money to give up that $25,000 average, $125,000 average, but not this group.
Okay, hang on for a second here.
I'm under the impression, by the way, that PSAC is shoehorning the part-time workers' numbers into that to artificially drive down the average wage of the workers.
They're playing fast and loose with the numbers.
The small group of strikers, well, it's not a small group, is not likely to put extra inflationary pressure on areas other than in Ottawa.
What are you talking about?
And even the max demand is still behind the inflation of the past two years.
In this case, I'm on the union side.
I'm not.
Although I know there are really excellent union workers, people who do a really good job working for the government.
My friend's mom is one of them.
And she's sort of been screwing, getting screwed around by this.
There are a lot of good people who are striking because their union wants them to strike and not because they want to.
But there are a lot of union demands here.
And I read the demands.
I'm not sure if you did, that are completely outrageous and insane.
And I don't think struggling Canadians, the average Canadian family who is maybe deciding to take Christia Freeland's advice and cancel their Disney Plus because they can't afford it or are struggling with the extra 10 cents a liter that the carbon tax has added to the price of fuel just to get to work.
I think it's time that the public sector faces the reality that everybody else does.
And Matthias, I don't know if you're in Alberta or not, but when the economy takes a hit, we sure feel it here in Alberta.
It's hundreds of layoffs in the oil patch, and that's just life.
I don't like it.
I don't like how government policies encourage it, but it's how it goes.
When the economy takes a hit, sure would be nice if the public sector.
I don't like the idea of people getting laid off, but it would be nice if they at least would recognize that there are two different candidates, a private sector and a public sector one.
And they both, to use Justin Trudeau's language, experience things differently.
Public Sector Realities00:00:28
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here.
No, I won't.
Maybe?
No, I don't know who's hosting tomorrow.
I was just going to close up this show as though it were my own, but it's not.
This is Ezra's show.
I don't know who's hosting tomorrow night, but someone will be here for you.
Thanks to everybody in the office in Toronto for bearing with me as the first version of the show I sent in was a bit of a catastrophe and I had to refilm anyway.