CBC CEO Catherine Tait defends her $420K–$497K salary and $6,000 Paris hotel expenses while refusing to rule out future bonuses or severance, despite 70% of Canadians opposing them. Taxpayer-funded payouts—$18M in executive bonuses alone—highlight systemic waste amid declining KPIs, like CBC’s $6.4M Indigenous spending versus $1.4B annual funding. Federal departments awarded $1.5B in bonuses since 2015 despite failing objectives, while Canada’s tax hikes, including a $6.9B capital gains increase, worsen competitiveness (31st for individual taxes). Rising taxes and BC’s near-conservative election shift could pressure Trudeau’s policies, as public frustration over lavish spending and ideological fiscal moves grows. [Automatically generated summary]
CBC executives are entitled to their entitlements and they're doing a great job.
Just ask them.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Earlier this week, CBC CEO Catherine Tate testified before the House of Commons Heritage Committee to her extensive bonuses and the millions of dollars in bonuses received by CBC executives while the network continues to fail.
She says she thinks she's doing a great job and Canadians would be concerned if she didn't take in all the perks her position provides to her.
Just take a listen.
What I would say is, first of all, if we're talking about 22-23, the results of that year are public.
For 23-24, all of the key performance indicators set out and approved by the board were achieved, if not exceeded.
Thank you.
So with respect, Ms. Tate, I did ask specifically about your compensation.
So when the range of compensation that is provided, you make more than the Prime Minister of this country.
That's your compensation.
So to get a bonus on top of that, at a time when viewership is down, ad revenue for your organization is down.
I asked specifically about whether or not you would refuse to take a severance package at the conclusion of your term as president.
I believe that Canadians would expect that the corporation honor its commitments to its non-unionized employees as it would to its unionized employees, and I would just correct the record.
Whereas total ad revenues are down, digital ad revenues are up since the beginning of my tenure, which digital revenue was at about 38 million.
This last year it clocked in at about 100 million.
So I think it's important that we have accurate descriptors of what's going on at CBC Hydro Canada.
So Ms. Tate, you said that it's confidential, that information, but that just doesn't work for Canadians.
Canadians look at $18 million awarded in bonuses, the fact that you just spent $1,000 a night for a hotel room in Paris during the Olympics, and we are in a situation where you are coming to the conclusion of your term, being paid more than the Prime Minister of this country makes.
And you refuse today to rule out that you will receive either bonuses or so-called performance pay or a severance package at the conclusion of your term.
It's confidential, doesn't cut it for Canadians.
It doesn't cut it for parliamentary oversight.
So again, I ask, will you specifically today share with this committee whether or not you will refuse a severance package or bonus at the conclusion of your term as president and CEO of CBC?
As I've said, I consider that to be a personal matter.
And I believe I'm protected by the Privacy Act in that regard.
So Ms. Tate, taxpayers pay your salary, as they do for all of us.
And you can Google an MP's salary.
You can Google a Prime Minister's salary.
But here we are discussing $18 million paid out to bonuses, $3 million paid out to executives.
Madam Tate, your own documents show that there are 631 managers at CBC.
43, I believe it is executives.
And you're defending those, the average bonus paid out to executives at your organization is more than most Canadians make in a year.
And you're claiming that it's confidential.
Madam Speaker, Madam Chair, through you, I would suggest that it is unbelievable that Ms. Tate would come before this committee with a very specific motion outlining that answers are demanded when it comes to the compensation received by a public broadcaster.
These are taxpayers' dollars that are paying for this organization.
So again, I will ask and emphasize, Ms. Tate, at the conclusion of your term, whether it's for previous fiscal year's bonuses or so-called performance pay for the conclusion of a severance package, will you refuse that out of respect for the taxpayers that have paid for you to have this role over the last number of years?
I believe I've answered the question.
And for the record, I would like to correct some of the errors, in fact, that the member has articulated.
One, this $18 million in performance pay is not, these are not dollars that aren't agreed upon well in advance of the end of the fiscal year.
We have a rigorous process in place, a process that has been in place for 20 years, Madam Chair.
A process that is similar to that of other Crown corporations, other government agencies, and most private companies.
A process that is guided by third-party consultants that advise us, experts that advise us on what it is we should be paying our executives and our managers.
And how much do those third-party consultants cost?
Well, Canadian taxpayers have a different view of the CBC than the CEO of CBC herself, Catherine Tate.
They don't like it.
They want the bonuses to stop.
And frankly, they don't even watch it.
No.
Joining me to discuss this and more is Franco Terrazano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Take a listen.
Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazano, to talk about just a wild week in Canadian politics and in Canadian finances and in taxation.
But first, let's talk about one of the more fun things I saw happen in and around Ottawa this week.
And that was Catherine Tate, CEO of CBC, being called to testify about CBC bonuses.
And it happened at the most inopportune time for Catherine Tate, but also I guess for the Canadian taxpayers, because scandal had just broken earlier that morning that she had dinged the taxpayer six grand for her trip to Paris.
And more information came out about that during the committee, too.
But first, let's talk about CBC bonuses.
Why should Canadians care about this?
Well, because it's our money, right?
This is like, first of all, these are taxpayer-funded bonuses going to a failing Crown corporation.
And we're not just talking about a couple bucks here or there.
We're talking about a lot of money, right?
This year, the CBC alone rubber stamped what, more than $18 million in bonuses to about 1,200 managers and executives and other non-union staff at the state broadcaster.
18 million bucks, right?
Let's look at the bonuses for their what, 43 executives, more than $3 million to their executives in bonuses, like an average bonus, Sheila, of more, of about $73,000.
That's more than what the average Canadian worker makes in an entire year going to a bonus for a CBC executive.
But even that downplays the cost of bonuses, right?
The CBC is handing out bonuses like participation awards every single year.
Since 2015, the CBC's bonuses have cost taxpayers $132 million.
It's a ton of money wasted.
Yeah, well, and as it came out yesterday, I think a liberal MP didn't know the answer to his own question, which is a big mistake.
At committee, and asked Catherine Tate about the doubling of people who qualify for bonuses at the CBC.
Under Stephen Harper in 2014, it was somewhere around 500.
And then as soon as Justin Trudeau takes power, it doubles to nearly 1,100 people at the CBC qualifying for these performance bonuses, which is absolutely outrageous because usually you have to be doing well to qualify for a performance bonus, but that's not the state of affairs down at the CBC.
Madame Tate, can you talk to us about what the CBC performance pay model was in 2014 versus what it is today in terms of its structure and how it's organized?
Or is there any difference?
Just let me have a look here for my file.
You say specifically in 2014, in 2014, the number of people receiving the performance pay was only 544 as opposed to 1,180.
There was a decision taken before my arrival to expand the number of people receiving performance pay because we were having difficulty retaining certain pay bands within the organization.
You need to understand that when I say we are paid at 50% what the industry pays, that means we have retention challenges.
And therefore, the performance pay was put in place to a larger group of people in order to ensure retention.
Well, you know, these bonuses in government isn't like a bonus in the private sector, right?
Where if you do a good job, then you get a bonus.
No, in government, it's like if you show up to work twice a week with their shoes tied, oh, here's a taxpayer-funded bonus, right?
And like, it's not just the bonuses that are going through the roof at the CBC.
I looked this up, but even just the number of six-figure salary staffers has ballooned in the state broadcaster, right?
So about over 1,400 CBC staffers, right?
More than 1,400 CBC staffers now are collecting a six-figure taxpayer-funded salary.
That's a what, a 231% increase since 2015.
But Sheila, do you mind if I just jump into another direction here?
Because go.
You know, it's not just the cost.
It's the complete disdain, lack of respect for taxpayers, right?
They have no problem taking taxpayers' money, but they do have a problem telling taxpayers exactly what they're spending it on.
And let me explain.
We do know the total amount of bonuses going to the non-union staff.
What we don't know is Tate's bonus are the bonuses for the other seven senior executives.
The CBC has continued to stonewall the release of that information.
You know, even at committee, I'm sure we'll get into this, but Tate refused to say what her bonus is and refused to say if she will accept or refuse a bonus or severance payout when she leaves the state broadcaster in the new year.
Yeah, that did come out at committee.
She won't commit to not taking a bonus, although she said, look, I didn't take a bonus this year.
But as it was pointed out by Kevin Waugh, a committee, Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, she could actually be banking these bonuses and her severance, take them all at once on the way out the door so that there's no ability for Canadians to hold her or the government that is awarding her these failing upwards bonuses accountable for any of it.
Oh, it's so bad, not just in terms of cost, but a lack of accountability and a lack of transparency, right?
And let me just put some of these numbers into perspective here.
So Tate's annual salary, the CBC won't say exactly what it is.
It gives us a range, right?
It's somewhere between $420,000 and $497,000 a year, Tate's annual salary.
So the prime minister's salary is $406,000.
So the head of a state broadcaster is making more than the prime minister, and the prime minister is already overpaid, okay?
But not just that, right?
They won't even tell us what the bonus is.
Some analysis from Global News that I saw estimates that the maximum bonus for Tate could be like $145,000.
$145,000.
That could be her maximum bonus.
But again, like all of this information should be public.
It is taxpayers' money.
Taxpayers deserve to know what we're spending our money on.
Now, you rightly pointed out that they're handing out these performance bonuses like participation awards.
And they've actually rigged the system so that that happens.
It came out in committee that they are lowering the KPI, the key performance indicators, so that no matter how bad the CBC fails at being a state broadcaster, they qualify for these bonuses.
So they can say, like, look, we're meeting the KPIs, so we qualify for the bonuses.
But when you drill down on the KPIs, they're just, I guess, you get it for showing up?
Is that how it works in government?
I don't know.
It's like writing your own tests that you have to write.
Right.
Oh, look, I passed my own test.
Well, you know what?
They're not passing the test of taxpayers.
Now, Sheila, as we've been talking about, they've been handing out bonuses.
You know, one thing they haven't done?
They haven't asked Canadians if Canadians support their bonuses.
So at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we decided to ask Canadians.
We hired a reputable polling firm, Leger, to conduct a poll.
And guess what?
Surprise, surprise, seven in 10 Canadians are against the CBC bonuses.
70% thereabout are against the CBC bonuses, right?
You even have defenders of the CBC speaking out against the bonuses.
But, you know, I know we're going to stay on the CBC, but I do want to broaden this just a bit here, because the problem with this is that the long arm of government is essentially reaching everywhere in people's pockets.
And no matter where you look, they're handing out these taxpayer-funded bonuses, right?
Canadians Against CBC Bonuses00:04:27
Federal departments have taken more than $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015.
They can't even meet half of their own performance targets on a consistent annual basis.
The Bank of Canada completely failed to do its only job of keeping inflation low and around 2% over the last couple of years.
They've handed out tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, another crown corporation, right?
Their number one objective, according to themselves, has been housing affordability for all.
Well, Canadians can't afford homes.
They've handed out tens of millions of dollars in bonuses in recent years as well.
So we need someone to not just get to the bottom of these taxpayer-funded bonuses for failure at the CBC, but we need them to cut out the rot across all of government.
Yeah, you left one off the list that I thought was quite remarkable.
That's the CBSA.
The CBSA spoiled in their rives scam scandal.
Their execs all qualified for performance bonuses too, which is absolutely outrageous.
They shouldn't be getting bonuses.
They should be getting fired.
Still staying on Catherine Tate.
I touched on it a little bit.
She charged the taxpayer $6,000, including a $1,000 per night hotel room, to attend the Olympics in Paris, France.
But she says, don't worry about it, Canadian taxpayers, because, well, for two reasons.
One, we would be concerned, I think is the word she used, if the head of the CBC wasn't in Paris for the Olympics, as if any of us actually care.
But secondarily, we should be grateful that she didn't charge us for her airfare because she's double dipping.
She was in Paris, or at least in France, on a personal holiday while charging us to go to the Olympics.
Did you say that you were on a personal trip to France, decided to extend your vacation, go to the Olympics, and then bill the taxpayer for it?
Is that correct?
I was on a personal trip to France, and I did not bill the taxpayer for my flight or travel from Canada.
What did you bill the taxpayer for?
The hotel and the train to get to Paris.
Where does your personal trip end and your taxpayer billing begin?
When I, as part of my job, being at the opening of the Olympics was absolutely expected of me.
So I interrupted my holiday and took the four days to go to the Olympics.
Could you understand why that sounds concerning to somebody?
Just because, you know, a bit of a weird situation where you get to go on a trip, you're having your personal time, and then you just unilaterally get to decide what becomes work and what doesn't?
Well, not if I'm not charging the company for the trip.
But you did charge the taxpayer $6,000 when I was working in Paris.
I did, yes.
But could you understand why it would be concerning to make that decision?
It would be concerning if the CEO of CBC Hadio Canada did not attend the opening of the Olympics, given it was one of the most important events of our calendar year.
But when the average Canadian hears that you're charging thousands of dollars to the taxpayer and you are just kind of deciding when your personal time ends and your billable time begins, it gets to sort of a broader concern and to the point about bonuses that many of our colleagues have made today, whether you have respect for the taxpayer.
Can you see why that would be concerning to the average Canadian?
I do not make those decisions alone.
I always check in with my chair and I behave in a responsible fashion.
Well, you know, I guess we just got, what, 6,000 new reasons to defund the CBC?
But, oh, I'm so, I'm so frustrated with the government thinking it's entitled to live high on the hog at our expense, right?
As if we need the head of a state broadcaster to bill taxpayers for, what, about $1,000 per night hotel stay for the Olympics and to claim that we must have the head of the state broadcaster at the Olympics.
Like, how many Canadians knew that the head of the state broadcaster was at the Olympics?
What, Tate and her family and a couple other CBC employees?
Whoever Booked Those Expenses?00:03:52
Like, come on, right?
Like, they live in such a bubble where I think they've convinced themselves that they're just so important that they are entitled to bill taxpayers for this obscene amount of spending.
And look, Tate, the CBC, whoever booked that hotel, whoever booked those expenses, they have some explaining to do.
But again, like this is such a problem across all of government, whether it's Trudeau staying in that $6,000 per night luxury hotel suite during the Queen's funeral in England, or the Governor General spending $71,000 on limo services in Iceland, or Trudeau during his last year Indo-Pacific trip, six-day trip, billing taxpayers $220,000 for airplane food, him and his entourage.
Like enough is enough.
They're living high on the hog and they're sending the bill back to Canadians.
You know, I'm so glad you pointed out how self-important these people are.
Catherine Tate testified that had it not been for the CBC, there would be no such thing as women's sports in this country.
She's simultaneously responsible for the saving of Canadian music and the language of Inuktituk.
CBC Hajio Canada has made a commitment to gender parity in amateur sports coverage.
That means we've gone from 4% of women covered in sport to 50%.
And in parasports, we've made an enormous commitment to coverage on a year-round basis.
The IOC considers CBC Hajio Canada in the top five Olympic broadcasters in the world because of our year-round commitment to amateur sports.
And just to be clear, if not for CBC Hagio Canada, and we heard this from the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Paralympic Olympic Committee last week at a conference where they stated without prompting from us that without CBC Hadio Canada, there would be no support for our amateur athletes in this country.
So it is profound.
Similarly, on the music side, without the Junos, without La Disque, without all of the things that we do for emerging talent, music, writing, performing, we would be impoverishing this country.
I would say that CBC Radio Canada with its programming like La Cay Nue, like Portois Flora, like Bones of Crows, like Son of a Critsch, like Allegiance.
These are shows that represent Canada's values, Canada's talent, and that are widely distributed on the world stage and speak enormously about our values of tolerance, our values of truth.
And I do believe that without CBC, again, it would be a huge impoverishment of our status and our place on the world stage.
And I think Deputy Member Martin Champus said that without Radio Canada in the minority language communities, I'm talking francophones in Edmonton and North Bay, all over the country, there would be no French news service available to them.
And I tried to mention that our role in the north, Natan Obed, president of ITK at the conference last week here in Ottawa, said unequivocally there would be no Inuktituk in this country if not for CBC.
CBC has been in the north since 1958 broadcasting in Inuktituk.
Without the CBC, that language would have disappeared.
That's what she testified to.
Capital Gains Tax Hike Impact00:09:40
Let me get into that, right?
Because that is a claim of the CBC that needs to be looked at where they talk about, well, you need us for Indigenous services or Indigenous language services and news.
Well, we decided to look at the numbers.
Okay, so the CBC, I believe it was last year, spent about $6.4 million on Indigenous services.
$6.4 million.
They take $1.4 billion from taxpayers every single year.
So less than what?
Half of per of less than half of a percent of what they're taking from taxpayers is what they're spending on Indigenous services.
Or to put it another way, less than half of the amount of money they hand out in bonuses are going to those Indigenous services.
So Tate's claim about that just doesn't pass the sniff tests.
Let's move on from Tate, although I could talk about her all day because that woman is absolutely outrageous.
You know what?
I can't wait to see who they replace her with because I think that's going to be fun.
But let's talk about the drop in tax competitiveness in Canada.
This is something that we saw happen on a smaller scale here in Alberta when the NDP took power and it ended the Alberta Advantage.
And we saw oil and gas companies decide, you know what, we're just going to not even be Canadian anymore.
We're going to head office in Texas.
And this is happening now across Canada writ large because of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's policies.
Absolutely.
And I remember living through that in Alberta, right?
I remember being downtown Calgary, seeing people leaving the office buildings, cardboard boxes in hand, crying.
So I remember that.
Like, so this isn't just about GDP numbers.
This isn't just about tax competitiveness.
What a tough word.
It's not just about the macroeconomics, right?
Like this impacts people's day-to-day lives.
And I saw that firsthand, as I know you did as well.
You lived through that too.
And so when I say like Canada just fell behind two spots compared to last year and the fact that there are 16 other industrialized peers that are doing better than us on tax competitiveness, it really means a lot.
It means that, you know, it's going to be harder to start a business in Canada.
Businesses could leave Canada.
It's going to be harder to attract investment.
And all of that means fewer and fewer jobs.
Now, the report compared 38 industrialized countries, okay, our peers.
We ranked 31st on individual tax competitiveness.
30 countries are better.
We rank 26th out of 38 on business tax competitiveness.
So this is brutal, right?
The government is taking too much money from Canadians, from families, from businesses, and that hurts all of us.
It's disincentivizing job creation too.
I mean, the idea that jobs are created by large-scale businesses is really just not the truth.
Most jobs are created by small and medium-sized businesses.
Those are your friends.
Those are your neighbors.
That's the welder up the road.
And it makes it harder and harder to do that when the government is taking more and more.
But with regard to the larger businesses, they've got 30 other places they can go.
Many of those people or those countries on the list produce many of the same things we do.
They are competitors against us in the international marketplace.
And our businesses can relocate and do business there and those take Canadian jobs with them.
And let me tie all of your points there, Sheila, into the government's recent capital gains tax hike.
Okay, because this report specifically cites the capital gains tax hike as a reason why Canada is falling behind other countries.
It notes that Canada taxes capital gains, quote, well above other OECD averages.
Okay, so our capital gains tax hikes are already hurt.
The government is trying to spin Canadians like, oh, this is only going to hurt a couple wealthy Canadians.
That's not true.
The capital gains tax hike punishes success in Canada.
It's going after doctors, entrepreneurs, and people who are trying to save for their retirements.
But let's also remember what the government is also doing, right?
The government is announcing what?
About $30 billion in corporate welfare to multinational corporations like Honda, Volkswagens, DeLantis, Northvolt.
Okay, so the government is taking more money from Canadian doctors, Canadian entrepreneurs, Canadian small businesses, and putting taxpayers on the hook for this corporate welfare to the boardrooms in what?
Germany and Japan.
Okay.
So if the government really cared about growing the economy, it would cut taxes for everyday Canadians and everyday Canadian business owners, and it would stop giving our hard-earned money to these multinational corporations.
Quite ideological at the end of the day, because we saw Stephen Harper cut taxes and the economy grew because people have more money to spend and more money to invest in their own businesses.
And when you invest in your own business, you create jobs.
So it's really ideologically driven because the results are there from past governments if the liberals ever wanted to look at it.
I mean, look, these bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa couldn't balance the budget of a lemonade stand.
Right.
And yet they want to run around pretending to be investment banker with our money.
Like, give me a break, right?
If these bureaucrats and politicians were any good at being investment bankers, they would be doing it with their own money.
But they're not.
So they're bureaucrats and they're politicians, right?
I mean, like, you're right.
This is, this is all about ideology because like, number one, the capital gains tax hike is going to hurt the economy.
It's going to hurt Canadians.
But number two, like, what is the government doing, right?
So this year, the capital gains tax increase will take about $6.9 billion from Canadians.
Okay.
Well, Trudeau is spending $535 billion.
So Trudeau is going to burn through that capital gains tax cash in less than a week.
So this isn't about like reducing the debt, right?
It's also not about making the tax system more fair because if the government was trying to make the tax system more fair, then somebody's taxes would be going down.
But taxes are only going up.
Capital gains tax increase, alcohol tax increase, carbon tax increase, digital service tax, online streaming tax, right?
It goes on and on and on and on.
I almost forgot about one of the most damaging tax increases of all, the payroll tax hikes.
Yes.
And, you know, I'm glad you pointed out that the politicians could run a lemonade stand because I'm old enough to remember when they let Christia Freeland, our finance minister, run a division of Reuters and she destroyed it through her mismanagement.
So then Justin Trudeau was like, you know what?
That's the one.
We should put her in charge of the economy.
And here we are.
Who could have ever seen that coming?
Now, speaking of who could have seen that coming, you asked Canadian taxpayers how they feel about the carbon tax on home heating.
And I think in a really obvious response, the majority of Canadians say, yeah, we wouldn't mind paying less for home heating.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
I mean, the poll, again, we commissioned this by Leger.
The poll results, very clear.
60% of Canadians said, take the carbon tax off everyone's home heating, right?
Don't just do an Atlantic Canada carbon tax carve out.
Take it off everyone's home heating bills.
In fact, even in Atlantic Canada, 68% support removing the carbon tax from everyone's home heating bills.
Sheila in Alberta, that was the highest amount of support for carbon tax relief at 70%.
Yeah, predictable.
Love Albertans, right?
But, you know, what it shows to me, because if you remove the undecided from this poll, it's 74% of Canadians that want the carbon tax removed from everyone's home heating bill.
So, like, it's pretty clear to me, Canadians don't think the government should be punishing people for trying to stay warm during the winter, right?
And this is why the carbon tax is such a damaging tax.
It essentially makes every aspect of Canadian life more expensive.
Canada is a big place.
You got to drive to work.
You got to drive to the store.
The carbon tax makes that more expensive.
Canada is a cold place.
The carbon tax makes staying warm more expensive.
And you got to eat.
Well, the carbon tax by punishing farmers, by punishing truckers, also makes your grocery haul more expensive.
And it makes your grocery haul more expensive, but sometimes the farmer, and I know this personally, we can't eat that cost because we're not price setters.
We're price takers.
So that comes right out of our family's pocket when we are selling our commodity into a world price.
But Justin Trudeau just made our inputs that much more expensive.
So it gets the carbon tax still makes your food more expensive.
And at the end of the day, it makes the farmer poorer.
Those high grocery store prices, they don't end up enriching families like mine, that's for sure.
Hold Them to Account00:02:38
Franco, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show.
I know that you have to have to get going, but before you do, I think it's really important for you to tell viewers of the gun show how they can get involved in supporting the CTF in the very important work that they do.
As my friend Chris Sims points out, you guys don't even take a tax advantage from the government for the nonprofit work that you do.
Well, we've never taken a penny from any government, never have, never will.
You can support all of our work.
Head over to taxpayer.com, check out our newsroom, break in a bunch of good stories all the time, and sign some of those good petitions.
my favorite, scrap the carbon tax, all of that at taxpayer.com.
We've come to the portion of the show wherein I invite your viewer feedback.
I know I say it every single week, and I know it's redundant for some of you, but the good news is we're getting new people here all the time.
So we've got to tell them what the rules are, right, guys?
I want to hear from you.
I care about your views about the work that I do here at Rebel News, the work that all of us do here at Rebel News, because without you, there is no Rebel News.
Because like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we'll never take a penny from any government that we are trying to hold to account.
It's our duty to hold them to account.
It's our duty to speak truth to power and to hold politicians accountable for the things they do and say behind closed doors to the people who voted for them or didn't vote for them for that matter.
And so I open up my email to you right now.
It's Sheila at RebelNews.com.
If you've got a comment about the show here today with Franco Tirzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, send it to me there.
Put gun show letters in the subject line so I know why you're emailing me because I get hundreds of emails every single week.
Could be more, depending on the controversial thing we've done at the network that week.
Or leave a comment on the free parts of the show.
So we post clips of the show to YouTube and Rumble after the fact.
If you leave a comment over there, I frequently go looking.
So those are the rules.
Send me your feedback.
This week's feedback comes to me from the email, and it's from Peter, who writes to me about a show that I did earlier about Daniel Smith and the Alberta Bill of Rights, making changes to the Alberta Bill of Rights.
Conservatives' Narrow Path00:02:30
And Peter says, Sheila, you said in the show, Daniel Smith and Alberta's Bill of Rights, that Rustad, that's John Rustad, might be premier after the October 19th election.
Wow, we're post-October 19th election by three days when I'm filming this, four days by the time you see the show.
He is not the premier yet.
Although we don't even have all the votes in.
There are two ridings that are holding the balance right now and hanging things up.
The count is within 100 in both of those ridings.
Right now it's 46 seats for the NDP, 45 for the Conservative Party of BC, and two for the Greens, which terrifies me because we don't want the Greens forming a coalition with the NDP the way they did in 2017, thus costing Alberta billions of dollars in lost resource revenue.
Let's keep going, though.
Chris Elston, that's Billboard Chris, said recently that Rustad is a very long shot for Premier.
Well, he wasn't that long, was he?
He had a party that didn't really exist 52 weeks ago.
And yet, he is within a couple of hundred votes of forming government in British Columbia.
That is an amazing accomplishment.
Elston said that the Conservative Party of BC support is suffused.
So it's spread out all over the place.
That suggests the BC Conservatives will get few seats in the legislature.
They almost have everything outside of the major municipalities in the lower mainland, and that's not even true.
I mean, they took Abbotsford, Chilliwack.
So, I mean, there's a sliver of orange where all the population is, but everything else in that province is beautiful blue.
The BC NDP support is concentrated in the cities, yes, but not all the cities.
I mean, the Conservatives took two seats on Vancouver Island, the hippie hotbed of Vancouver Island.
I think that goes to the having the vaccines crammed down your throat on Vancouver Island.
Hippies and conservatives hate big pharma the same.
BC NDP Support Concentrated00:01:14
Anyways, let's keep going.
The BC NDP support is concentrated in the cities where most MLAs get elected.
Peter, I think we're half right, both of us.
So I think you underestimated the BC Conservative seats.
I said he had a chance at forming government.
I still believe he has a chance at forming government and even a much better chance than I had than I had him pegged at at the beginning of the live stream coverage of election night.
So if you're watching this on Wednesday, I'm filming it on Tuesday.
You might know more.
We both might know more when this goes to air, but we don't know anything yet, except that John Rustad really did something incredible in British Columbia, and it should frighten the daylights out of Justin Trudeau.
Because if you can do that in British Columbia, you imagine what Pierre Polyeff's going to do across the rest of the country.
I'm excited just thinking about it.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.