The News Rundown
- Polls in the 2025 Election
- How Polls Work
- The types of polls
- Can you trust a poll?
- It's become clear this week that the CBC will have 2 vastly different futures after this month's election, and that Canadians could be paying more for the media they consume.
- Liberal leader Mark Carney made a bold statement this week, saying that the CBC is actually 'underfunded' in comparison to state broadcasters in Europe, and pledges to provide an initial $150-million annual funding increase to CBC and Radio-Canada as part of a new mandate for the public broadcaster.
- Carney made his announcement in French in Montreal, which was not by chance. Quebec has been the province with the highest support for the CBC, and with Carney's proficiency in French lagging behind the other party leaders', he's looking to keep Quebec voting Liberal in this upcoming election.
- The initial top-up would be increased in the coming years under a Carney government and he also said funding of the CBC and Radio-Canada would be made statutory, meaning any changes would have to be approved by a Parliament vote, not just the government's cabinet. That would make it harder for a future government to unilaterally decide to defund the broadcaster.
- This plan has the media relying even more on the government for funding, which is something we have seen from the Liberals before. In 2019, Justin Trudeau promised a $600m bailout for Canadian media, a plan even criticized by many journalists who feared for Canadian news independence. Since then, we've seen how the media shapes its coverage of Canadian news, and only tells stories it wants the public to hear.
- Meanwhile, Conservative leader Poilievre has said he wants to defund the CBC while maintaining its French-language programming. Responding to a reporter's question about Carney's announcement, Poilievre, campaigning in Trois-Rivières, Que., did not specifically address the issue of defunding the CBC. Instead, he said the proposed funding boost is just part of the Liberal government's overall record of excessive spending.
- Poilievre said: “Let’s be clear on this: Mr. Carney has not proposed a single penny in cost reductions in this government. He is now proposing to stack billions more costs on top of an already morbidly obese government. We need a change, folks. We can’t go on spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need, or our people are going to end up with even more brutal inflation.”
- Currently, CBC/Radio-Canada’s public funding per capita is around $33.66, nearly half of the average funding of G7 countries, which is $62.20 per capita. Former heritage minister Pascale St-Onge promised to bring Canada closer to that average when she unveiled her plan for the CBC back in February. Carney said St-Onge’s work on the issue “informed many of the decisions that we are taking and announcing today.”
- There is, however, one major difference: Carney would allow CBC/Radio-Canada to continue collecting advertising and subscription revenues. St-Onge had warned that its “dependence on advertising and subscription revenues risks compromising its objectives of public service, by favouring revenue-generating content to the detriment of the social, cultural and democratic benefits intended in its mandate.”
- At the end of the day, we need to make sure that Canadian institutions serve Canadians faithfully, while providing good cost value. If the CBC and other media outlets cannot survive without government funding, then they can easily become biased with coverage based on whoever promises them more money. Then it easily turns into Canadians paying for media that are more interested in seeking more money than it is to deliver unbiased news.
- Whether or not you believe CBC should exist or not does not change the fact that Canadians are paying a lot of money to news organizations that do not properly tell Canada's stories, and that the federal government has been spending a lot of money it doesn't have. It's something that will clearly change one way or the other after the next month.
- Supplementals:
- The topic of natural resources and new pipelines was addressed by Liberal leader Mark Carney this week when he said that a Liberal government will not repeal Bill C-69.
- Bill C-69 unofficially known as the no more pipelines act and officially as the Impact Assessment Act requires assessment for environmental, health, social, economic, and and the rights of indigenous people before a major resource or infrastructure project can get off the ground.
- Since Bill C-69 was put on the books not a single new project has been started.
- In 2023 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the bill was largely unconstitutional since some sections were too broad and could overreach into provincial jurisdiction.
- The court’s decision was non-binding and as such no changes were made by the Trudeau-Liberal government.
- This is interesting because when the Liberal leadership race was going on mere weeks ago Carney said that there should be pipelines built across the country, even through Quebec.
- It remains to be seen how a project will be built with C-69 in place if the Liberals are re-elected.
- Carney insists that the Cabinet will move forward on projects of national interest by “removing duplication in terms of environmental assessments and other approvals and will follow the principle of ‘one project, one approval’, to move forward from that.
- Mark Carney also says, “what’s essential is to work at this time of crisis, to come together as a nation, all levels of government, to focus on those projects that are going to make material differences to our country, to Canadian workers, to our future.”
- The Conservatives and those in the trenches originally against C-69 were quick to respond.
- Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre responded, “This Liberal law blocked BILLIONS of dollars of investment in oil & gas projects, pipelines, LNG plants, mines, and so much more - all of which would create powerful paycheques for our people. A fourth Liberal term will block even more and keep us reliant on the US," he wrote, urging people to vote Conservative.
- Looking at projects that did attempt to get started, the Canada West Foundation examined 25 and found that ALL were stuck in the early stage of review and had spent an average of 322 days in the first phase of review, short of the 180-day goal.
- According to what the industry was told, phase 1 was supposed to speed things up but it clearly did not.
- Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney wrote a lengthy response on X to this revelation that a re-elected Liberal government will not repeal C-69.
- He said, “This is not optional, Mr. Carney… This was perhaps the most important judicial decision on the division of powers since the adoption of the 1982 Constitution Act. Alberta’s case was supported by 8 of the 9 other provinces… Now Mr. Carney appears to be thumbing his nose at the courts, and the Constitution. The Liberal Party can’t claim to be defenders of the Constitution while flagrantly ignoring the Constitution. You can’t criticize the Trump Administration for threatening to ignore court rulings if you support the Government of Canada in doing the same here. This is not just about the rule of law. Complying with the Constitution isn’t partisan. It’s not ideological. It’s not optional. It’s mandatory.”
- This is another peg in the board of ambiguity regarding whether or not resource projects are actually a priority for the Liberals and using them to achieve the status of energy super power given the recent perceived American threat.
- Supplementals:
Firing Line
- As expected, the BC government moved to remove BC's carbon tax, after Liberal leader Mark Carney moved to eliminate the federal requirement for one on his first day after being elected leader. Instead of the carbon tax going up on April 1st, we instead were treated to a marathon legislation session at the Legislature in Victoria before being removed on Tuesday.
- Yes, 17 years after BC first brought in the carbon tax under the former BC Liberal government, the carbon tax is now gone, as it is across Canada. Reluctantly, the BC NDP said in September last year that they would scrap the consumer carbon tax if the federal government waived the requirement. And on Monday, with that waiver in place, Eby's government fast-tracked a bill through the legislature to kill it prior to the scheduled April 1 increase. After several hours of debate, it passed around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.
- David Eby said of the carbon tax: "I support the policy. I thought it was a good policy. I fought for the policy. Without a doubt, the policy became absolutely toxic with British Columbians, [who] don't support it; they don't want it. We listen to the people."
- The immediate effect will be the elimination of 17.61 cents per litre to the price of gas for most motorists. In fact, many places in BC have seen prices lower by more than that, even with a run up in prices before April 1st due to the switchover to summer fuel practices.
- In the legislature, outside of the short time allotted to the Green Party, there was little debate over whether the carbon tax was effective in achieving its aim of reducing carbon emissions. The Greens opposed the bill at various stages as it moved through debate, but nobody voted against the bill at the final reading.
- Eby’s wish to minimize the significance of his backdown on the carbon tax helps explain why the NDP waited till the last moment to repeal the tax. They also insisted on putting the legislation through the house in a single day, with little debate.
- Indeed, British Columbia's gross greenhouse gas emissions stayed effectively flat from 65.5 million tonnes in 2007 to 65.6 million tonnes in 2022, the most recent year available. It created a trendline and legacy that could be interpreted and debated in multiple ways — much like the history of the controversial tax itself.
- Whether or not it was seen as a tool to redirect money from polluters to low income people, or as a way to tax people on essentials, it's clear that politically, it was no longer feasible for any mainstream party to support.
- Asked how the government would fill the gap in revenue from removing the consumer carbon tax, Eby said, “we’ll be restructuring significant parts of the CleanBC program.”
- The province does not plan to roll back individual and corporate tax cuts that were associated with the introduction of the carbon tax, but it will stop sending rebate payments to individuals and families, he said. The credit provided $504 a year to individuals with incomes under $41,000.
- Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at gas tracking site GasBuddy.com is expecting the cost of diesel to come down by more than 20 cents a litre, which should have positive ripple effects on the overall economy as it lowers costs for truck drivers, farmers and other users of that fuel. Ultimately, the hope is that lower costs for farmers and transportation should lower prices for goods and services across Canada that rely on that fuel to get to market. Ideally, it will help to drive down inflation, and lower costs for everyone, to the tune of more than what the rebate was.
- Finally, it's important to note that very little about the story has focused on what this does for the province's finances. A loss of a few billion dollars is not exactly good when the province is continuing to spiral further into debt under the NDP.
- We saw a fiscal double whammy this week, when two leading rating agencies downgraded the province’s credit rating on the same day. S&P and Moody’s faulted the NDP for piling up deficits and debt with no end in sight. Neither could identify a credible plan to rein in spending or bring the books back into balance.
- Both agencies blamed decisions that predate the current crisis brought on by Donald Trump’s tariff threat. Both warned that if trends continue, further downgrades were likely. Both ranked B.C.’s fiscal outlook as “negative.”
- S&P echoed Moody’s finding that the NDP government has departed from B.C.’s “commitment to fiscal discipline and stability.” The point of departure was clearly between the Eby government and the one headed by John Horgan.
- Horgan, and his first finance minister, Carole James, took fiscal responsibility seriously. Both remembered how the NDP government of the 1990s sacrificed its financial credibility, which became a factor in its crushing defeat in 2001.
- James, with her first budget, paid off B.C.’s $1 billion direct and delivered a $300 million surplus. At the time, the ratings agencies responded by continuing B.C.’s top rank, triple A (AAA) credit rating, an accomplishment that James cited with pride.
- In contrast, the rating reports released Tuesday, were nothing to boast about. S&P lowered B.C. to a A+, down from AA-. Moody’s dropped the province from Aa1 to Aa2.
- Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said the downgrade came as no surprise in her ministry. “We did know that this was a strong likelihood.” Not that she used the advance notice to produce a credible plan to recover the province’s financial position. Still, one is in the works, the finance minister assured the legislature. Details to come in the next financial update, scheduled for September. These things take time, after all.
- Bailey even complained that “We inherited a deficit,” which Conservative MLA Peter Milobar fired back by saying “The premier inherited a $6 billion surplus,” correctly summarizing the bottom line of John Horgan’s last financial update before he left office in late 2022.
- Bailey estimates the deficit for the current year at $11 billion. Moody’s says $14 billion is more likely once the New Democrats incorporate the revenue loss from phasing out the carbon tax.
- So was the removal of the carbon tax a bad thing by a financial standpoint? No, as we've said before, the BC government does not have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem, and they now have a short legislature recess to fix those issues before we see even worse financial problems.
- Supplementals:
Quote of the Week
"I support the policy. I thought it was a good policy. I fought for the policy. Without a doubt, the policy became absolutely toxic with British Columbians, [who] don't support it; they don't want it. We listen to the people." - BC NDP Premier David Eby on reluctantly scrapping BC’s carbon tax
Word of the Week
Toxic - very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.
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Show Data
- Episode Title: Toxic Taxes
- Teaser: We talk about the reliability of polls, Mark Carney pledges $150M to the CBC, and the Liberals refuse to repeal Bill C-69. Also, BC’s carbon tax is reluctantly scrapped by the NDP at the last minute.
- Production Code: WC-412-2025-04-05
- Recorded Date: April 5, 2025
- Release Date: April 6, 2025
- Duration: 1:02:08
- Edit Notes: None
Podcast Summary Notes
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Duration: XX:XX