‘We look back on it as a time of panic’: Whether the Freedom Convoy was covered fairly

Video

Full Press discusses whether mainstream media properly portrayed the Freedom Convoy, following the soft sentencing of lead organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. They explore the appointment of conservative radio show host Ben Mulroney as host of Global News’ flagship political show The West Block. Finally, they debate whether news outlets are limiting free speech by scrapping their comment sections.

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Program Transcript

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HARRISON LOWMAN: Welcome to Full Press, a media criticism podcast where listeners and viewers can escape the mainstream media echo chambers for precious 35 minutes every two weeks. I’m Harrison Lowman, managing editor of the Hub. What are we going to talk about today? Following the sentencing of two of the Freedom Convoy’s main leaders, we’ll ask if the media properly portrayed those protests three years ago. And the son of a former PM goes from being a radio personality celebs thought leader to hosting one of Canada’s most, I think, respected current affairs programs in Canada. How’s that going? And finally, are outlets ditching free speech by ditching their comment sections? We’ll get into that with Peter and Tara, speaking of those two. Hello, you two. Welcome back to the show. It’s great to see you after a few weeks. How are things?

PETER MENZIES: Great. Good to see you looking well rested.

HARRISON LOWMAN: I’m trying, I’m trying. We actually need makeup, Amal. I think because I can get rid of the bags in my eyes, maybe. Okay, beyond babies, let’s talk about the Freedom Convoy potentially going free. Tamara Leach, Chris Barber. Chris Barber, right, guys. I get his name right. Found guilty of mischief in counseling others to disobey a court order earlier this year. Leach found guilty of mischief bar both were not guilty on several other counts, each given. And I think this is much less than what a lot thought. 18 month conditional sentences. 12 months house arrest. They are allowed to visit friends and family with limited outings. Then six months they have a curfew where they can’t go out between 10pm and 5am and 100 hours of community service. Tara, let me start with you. This is the next chapter of the the Freedom Convoy saga. We’ve had the commission ruling, we’ve had the federal court ruling where they said the Emergencies act shouldn’t have been invoked. Now we have this. What sort of picture is being painted in terms of how the media portrayed this versus what other institutions had to think about this, them being the court system. And what do you make of it all?

TARA HENLEY: Well, I do think it’s very interesting. This is probably one of, I think, the biggest stories that we will cover in our lifetimes. This is a huge moment historically in the country, and I think it’s appropriate now to look back and decide whether we, as a press with the first draft of history got it right. And I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that. I do not think that we got it right. The narrative at the time was that this was a group of extremists, violent extremists. From the fringe, right wing, violent extremists from the fringe who were early advocating for the overthrow of the government and were funded by foreign actors. None of those things have held up as facts over time. At the POAC Commission, we heard law enforcement say that they did not think that this group represented a national security threat. We heard the federal court then rule that there was no emergency that justified the invocation of the Emergencies Act. And now we have had another court say that the two main organizers were essentially guilty of mischief. And so I think we have to face facts now that while this protest was disorderly, disruptive, super annoying to residents, distasteful, maybe has some unsavory characters, that the dominant narrative about these protests is just not factually accurate. And I would like to see us go back and correct the record.

HARRISON LOWMAN: The Crown wanted eight years of jail for Barber, seven for Leech for being key organizers in this, and the defense wanted an absolute discharge with no criminal records. I see those two sides of the story. I’ll say personal experience, places I worked may or may not have told us at the time when we were covering it. You are not permitted to speak to convoy protesters because of this. Fear that. And yes, as you admit to Tara, there were some that were conspiratorial. There was a subset that had some outlandish plan to get in touch with the Governor General and upend the government. But as is with many of these things, it’s like a convention. You get a whole mix of different people. Members of my family went by to check it out, who were skeptical about vaccine mandates. So you got a whole mix of people who were very disruptive to the people in Ottawa. I can understand, if I had my baby, you imagine how much less sleep I’d have now if I lived near Parliament Hill at that point in time. But then there’s also this. And Peter, you can get this, too. Remember the Nazi flag? This Nazi flag that was probably some protest, basically saying the Trudeau government is authoritarian. That was then expanded to represent the entire protest. They’re all Nazis. We should be fearful of them. It just kind of went off the rails and legitimate criticism became legitimate criticism. And I don’t know, it was a lot like our approach to the graves around that period, too. Peter, what did you. You make of this and how we should consider what happened all those years ago?

PETER MENZIES: Yeah, I think when you reflect back on it. When I reflect back on it anyway, you see it as a time of panic, controlled panic in many cases, but it was definitely a time of Panic. Everybody was frightened. The government was actually trying to make sure everybody was frightened so that they would take certain, certain measures, et cetera, et cetera. People did not know what the outcomes of things would be. People didn’t know whether masks worked or whether they didn’ so everything, everything got extreme. So what happens is, I mean, you remember the, remember the guy who was lighting an apartment building on fire? Remember that story going around? There was, there was, there was a lot of bad journalism. There was some good journalism though, right? I mean, we have to remember that news, you know, the old adage, newspapers only report when airplanes land safely there. We will remember the bad bits and not remember some of the better bits. But I do think it would be wise for all organizations, particularly media, who are not very good at this at all, to look back over their shoulder and reflect on how they covered this event. For that matter, the government of Canada should be having some sort of inquiry to reflect on how it conducted its affairs and what we can learn from it. I Many countries have done that. Canada hasn’t at all.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Didn’t we already do that? Peter, Wasn’t that the commission just the Emergencies act, like the focus on the.

PETER MENZIES: Government specific to the Emergencies Act. But I don’t think it got into, you know, why were we told we didn’t need masks and then.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Oh, you needed on Covid.

TARA HENLEY: Oh yeah, yeah, Covid inquiry.

PETER MENZIES: Yeah, yeah, a Covid inquiry. In terms of that anyway, the point being that you can always, you are only going to learn for your mistakes if you acknowledge them. And I don’t think media are very good at acknowledging their mistakes. I think in the Lichen Barber case here, everybody, there’s a lot of other stuff going on to be fair, but everybody’s just going to put their head down and go forward and we’ll all pretend it never happened.

HARRISON LOWMAN: I remember at the time too there was this thinking, as Tara said, like there was push from up high to do stories around it being foreign funded because certainly this couldn’t be homegrown. And this idea as well, listen, there were links to Canadian veterans and former RCMP officers, but that they were like at the helm of this thing and driving it. I remember that was one. I remember journalists saying they were accosted as they were walking through the protests or at least saying they were unsafe. I don’t know to what extent that was. I know there were some choice words for Evan Solomon and David Cochran when they were doing stand up interviews near there, but Tara, let me get your take on this. I thought this was an interesting point made by the judge. The judge said the gap between what each side was pushing for in terms of punishment illustrated the political schism in the Canadian political landscape. And then said, politics, though, has no place inside this courtroom and plays no role in the determination of what is fair, just and an appropriate sentence. What do you think about politics, role in journalism and what say it should have in terms of how we report things? And did it kind of leak into our reporting to a fair amount then all those years ago?

TARA HENLEY: I think so. I really think so. And I think that we gotta stand back and just think about the facts of this case. I mean, the same way that generations now look back on the October crisis, future generations will be looking back on this and what will they see? They will see a demonstration, which, as I said, was unruly and, you know, potentially uncouth and all of those things. But no violence. There was no violence. Why? Why is that?

HARRISON LOWMAN: They’re going to say back to you, they’ll say, look at Coutts. They’ll say, look at, you know, the economy was stopped at the border here in Ontario. Like, what’s your response to them when they say, you know, you’re not, you’ve got to expand your lands, what, wider across the country? This is why it was invoked for sure.

TARA HENLEY: Of course we do. But I think that if you’re focusing on Ottawa, there was no violence and the border had already been cleared by the time the invocation of the Emergencies act was brought in. So I think we just have to think really critically about this and understand that these two main organizers, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, did not have criminal records, were repeatedly calling for peaceful protest. Any large scale protest, you’re going to find characters, you’re going to find unsavory things. That’s just the nature of mass protest. I just think we have to think really critically about this. And I understand the position the media was in. I was of course working then too. It, you know, it was very difficult to figure out what was actually going on on the ground. But I still think that we have a duty to remain calm and to try to not be alarmist, to not jump to conclusions, not basically try to scare the public, which when you look back at some of this coverage, is incredibly alarmist. So I just think we need a bit of a look back on this.

HARRISON LOWMAN: One and at the very least talk to them. I remember when they came here in Toronto, luckily, you know, some barriers had been put up, meaning trucks didn’t make their way to Queen’s Park. So you didn’t have that noisy brouhaha, but just go out and speak to them. Like, I remember being in a crowd of trucker supporters and they were talking about how much they hated the media. And I stepped into the circle and said, I’m a member of the media, and pulled up this press pass and they all kind of like stopped and got bug eyed. And then we actually had an honest conversation. Yes, they said some wild things about how the government wants to track us and there’s comparisons to the Holocaust and we talked about how that’s overblown and does a disservice to people who actually died in the Holocaust. But I don’t know, there’s just interviewing the people who are mad about xyz. I think that’s the very least you should do. Peter. It felt like we wanted to make this in the Media. Our January 6th.

PETER MENZIES: Right.

HARRISON LOWMAN: It was almost like disappointment that it didn’t reach that level. Is that the sense you got.

PETER MENZIES: Kind of? Yeah. I mean, there’s no question that, you know, two things. First of all, there were weird elements inside the convoy. I mean, there were some folks. I would probably sit down and just shake my head and say, good heavens, where did you get such an idea in terms of that? Yet at the same time, there was no violence. They were, if at times not fully that well informed, generally honest in their intentions. But we also have to remember the process that led up to it is that those folks who were resisting vaccinations and that sort of stuff, they had been demonized and they had been made to be others. And then they started to behave like others and they resisted. It’s easy to forget that. I mean, I can, I remember there were helicopters in the air over the outdoor ice rinks near where I live, making sure that no more than I forget the exact number five or six people were ever on the ice at one time. Right. That’s, that’s kind of creepy. It’s more than kind of creepy. It’s very authoritarian and people will resist that. I think the story is that you can only push people on their, on the subjugation of their freedom so far. And they will resist too much order and people fight for liberty. Too much liberty and people fight for order. That’s, that’s, that’s the history of the world right there. And I think that we were all kind of encouraged to treat those people as a mortal threat to the rest of us, perhaps without justification. I thought everybody should get vaccinated for sure, but I never thought that you could actually force people to be vaccinated. I would have wanted to encourage people to be vaccinated, but I resisted the idea that the state had a role in forcing people to put something in their body that they did not want to take.

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HARRISON LOWMAN: To be had here. There’s a $9 million civil lawsuit for Barber’s role in the blockade. They want his truck. They wanted to take away his truck. That was a part of the protests as punishment. I think we’ll look back at this and it’ll be a big moment for the turn the Conservative party took. Whether MPs that sidled up to this movement or didn’t, I think it was a defining moment and acclaimed o’ Toole’s leadership as well. Let’s go into block two. I call this Big Ben. Ben Mulroney, the son of Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is going to host global News flagship political affair show the West Bloc. He’s had a few episodes already. He’s taken over for Mercedes Stevenson, who is on mat leave. He’s a former host of E Talk, Canadian Idol, if you remember that, and your mourning. However, he’s also, and he’s upfront about it, definitely a conservative. He says things like, my bias is there for all to see. I’m not a journalist. I’m not gonna abide by your neutrality purity tests. But I do know how to conduct a fair and respectful interview. He said this in response to a bunch of criticism that’s come out saying, how can you host what is supposed to be an objective national Current Affair show, given your interests that are there for all to see, your familial connections, Hill Times reporting, he donates to the Conservative Party hosted events. Anyway, taking all this into account, Tara, what do you make of this move and what it says about whatever a host television personality is supposed to be in this country?

TARA HENLEY: I think you can look at this from a number of different angles. I mean, on the one hand, I like Ben and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do. And I also think that it’s a healthy development in this country to have more viewpoint diversity throughout the media. And so I think the move of hiring someone who’s conservative is a good development and shows that maybe we’re coming back to a little bit of sanity. However, I do really believe in objectivity, and not as some kind of ethereal concept that we all have no biases, but in the actual rules of objectivity. What does that mean? It means that we don’t have conflicts of interest. It means that we don’t participate in the political process as donors, as protesters. And that I think that objectivity is really important to uphold trust. And I would like to see that more consistently enforced. If each network has rules on that, I would like to see them enforce that across the political spectrum in the same way. And I would also like to see other media expect that if, you know, if they believe, believe in objectivity, then let’s apply that standard, which I think we should, and I do believe in it, across the spectrum to everybody.

HARRISON LOWMAN: I’m getting echoes, kind of like the Barry Weiss thing here. I’m wondering what Peter’s dictionary looks like and whether he sees major differences in definitions when it comes to TV personality, journalist, broadcaster. Ben calls himself a connector at one point. Entertainer, host. Does any of that matter? Is it all getting flattened out in 2025? People care less about the serious man behind the desk, giving both sides. What do you think, Peter?

PETER MENZIES: I think people will be fine if the questions are fair and they’re applied equally to people of all different backgrounds. The BBC doesn’t call folks in that role journalists. They call them presenters and they’re interviewers. And Mulroney has a long history back with CTV as being a presenter and interviewer conducting interviews. I find the sort of squealing among the journalists journalism crowd that, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. He’s not a journalist to be quite silly. I mean, he’s a temporary replacement. Nobody actually knows how to define a journalist anyway. The Debates Commission came out with a decision just last week saying they had scanned the entire industry and there was no consensus on what a journalist is.

HARRISON LOWMAN: But can we say that there’s a gap between what Mercedes Stevenson is and the person that will be replacing him?

PETER MENZIES: Right.

HARRISON LOWMAN: He’s fashioned himself for the last few years. He left E Talk and he talked about making space for racialized people to fill his shoes. And over the last few years, he’s fashioned himself to be a very Successful conservative host, commentator, etc. And I’m just saying, like, there’s clearly, like, that’s not what Mercedes Stevenson is. And you know, to replace one with another.

PETER MENZIES: What is Mercedes? What is Mercedes, though?

HARRISON LOWMAN: Mercedes is a. I’m not trying to.

PETER MENZIES: I’m not trying to give you a hard time.

HARRISON LOWMAN: No, please. Do we need more disagreement on that? Mercedes Stevenson is a journalist.

PETER MENZIES: Trying to illustrate the point that nobody really knows what the. How to define a journalist. I have no objection to Milroti being on there. I. Any more than I would have any objection to most of the CBC staff who are on their shows. I don’t think it’s appropriate to be donating to a political party. I would agree. And he has done that in the past. But again, he’s a temporary. He’s a temporary replacement for that sort of stuff. So it, you know, the proof of the pudding will be how many people watch the show. Not a lot of people watch those shows. The journalistic and political community watch them and they all make a big deal about them because they don’t have anything else to do on Sunday morning. But, but I don’t think it’s. Honestly, I think it’s. I think it’s. I think the whole industry just looks silly by getting itself in a, in a snit over something like this. He does a good job or he does a bad job, end of story.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Just to answer your question, Peter, Mercedes Stevens is someone who, you know, cut her teeth reporting on the Canadian Armed Forces. She’s pretty respected on both sides, I would say. She does a fair interview and her research.

PETER MENZIES: I can remember receiving op ed pitches from her when she was at the ufc. That’s how old I am.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Yeah, she thinks she has an academic background too. Listen, Ben says he will behave differently. He told his radio show show listeners, if I sound differently, you know, on one day and then differently when I’m hosting this show, it’s because, like, when you’re in church, you know, you got to sort of put your tie on and, and, you know, change the way you talk a bit. So it’ll be interesting to watch this stuff and see, you know, that he’s sort of playing both roles. Tara, any final thoughts on this and what it means? Is it pressers sending at all or is this just a big much to do about nothing?

TARA HENLEY: Well, I think the media coverage of it is largely much to do about nothing, although I still reserve the point that I think we have to maintain these rules in news gathering and news sharing information networks. But I Think it’ll be a wait and see thing? I think we’ll see. As Peter said, if he conducts really fair interviews and is a consummate professional, then I think a lot of these objections will fall by the wayside.

HARRISON LOWMAN: That’s the big thing, right? I think it’s interesting if people are able to look at someone and say, I know what you think about something. I know your biases and your opinions. But I know that when you’re in the chair speaking of the person across from you, you give them a fair shake, no matter what their views are, et cetera. I think the key is like fairness that people are desperate for. I don’t not be tricked not to have things exaggerated in some ways when you’re in that role in a show like this, to be fair. So I don’t know. We’ll see what happens there. Our final block here, we’ll call no Comment. This is one of my obsessions, Peter, and I hope it is yours too. The Hub is opening up a comment section on all our pieces. So if you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll be able to take part and actually have a back and forth and give us your input in terms of what you think about our pieces. I think there’s not enough of this. The CBC blocks like all of its comments due to harassment and what they call the attacks at reports.

Reporters have to think about their anxiety and well being is what was said in a memo. You can’t comment on Facebook. You couldn’t before it was blocked. You can’t do it after it was blocked in Canada. They’re off Twitter because Elon Musk called them like paid for government media, if you remember that, that caused their exit. Can’t comment on their YouTube videos or on their site. And you know, CTV has comments on his site. Global has comments on YouTube but none of its site. Anyway. There’s a whole array of different comments that have been turned on or turned off around media and I wonder if it’s limiting free speech. You’re putting stuff out into the world. The whole point of the Internet was to connect us all, but it doesn’t feel like there’s feedback often. Peter, what do you think about this? Is my obsession worth something here or am I making again much to do about nothing?

PETER MENZIES: I don’t think you’re making much to do about nothing. I mean, I nervously checked my column in the Hub this morning to see what comments had been made, to see if I should be blushing or if I had made some grievous error. I think comments have to be moderated. Comments are the letters to the editor of the Modern Age. They’re a great opportunity to engage people in debate, allow people to sort of speak back. You know, if I say something in a column, you know, I’ve had my say. I got to, I should be. Be comfortable having somebody post a contrary opinion saying, menzies, you’re wrong. This is, this is where you’re wrong. Blah, blah, blah. They get, I get my say. They get their say. I think that’s fair. But they do have to be moderated and the CBC certainly should be engaging people in debate because that’s part of its core purpose is to, is to have that debate. But you do have to moderate them because it can, you know, and set rules and say you have to agree to these rules and you have to use your own name and, and have a, I think, and have a, a whole set of rules around it. I think having, allowing. I think allowing people to post anonymously is dangerous. You get, you get into bots and that sort of stuff. But I’m, I’m very much all about the idea of debate and that people should, should have that opportunity and have their say and that, that the opinions shouldn’t be limited to those within the industry who can therefore look like some sort of priesthood, some sort of gnostics that know it all. They need to be open to feedback from the public.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Tara, what do you think? Because I actually think, just to encourage more debate here, I actually think they don’t need to be moderated. I think it can gauge a public square of ideas beyond the most egregious, horrible, racist stuff that should come down. I think it should just be. I don’t think it should be. I don’t think it should be the responsibility of media outlets to be, you know, having to sort through this because that’s often the excuse given we don’t have the resources to devote someone to pick through these comments, which I think is an actual waste of time. The Globe does this, the stars comments as well. The post does. I don’t know how much time they devote on their site to picking through this. This may come back to bite me. We’ll get some horrible comments after this, like on this exact video. But Tara, what do you think? My previous employer got rid of comments and I basically kept expressing this and they said, harrison, stop beating a dead horse and shut up about this and just wait for letters and emails to come in from the most frustrated boomers, which I think is not fair. You need comments in real time, feedback from listeners and readers, whether you like it or not. What do you think?

TARA HENLEY: Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think that the public gets very upset when they cannot comment on something. I think that’s only fair. It’s basically a sort of democratic principle that they should have their say in the public square as well. And. Yeah, but I will also say that people do say pretty outrageous things in the comment section when they’re not moderated and that it can get pretty hairy. And I think that we sort of have to decide as an industry and as a society that do we see what gets posted in the comments section as any sort of responsibility to the platform or do we not? I think that’s a question that needs to be answered. And then just from a journalist perspective, I’ve. I’ve been a journalist for 25 years now. I was a journalist before comment sections and after comment sections. I think probably 18 of those years, maybe 20, I don’t know, has been with comment sections. And I. I think it’s complicated things a lot.

HARRISON LOWMAN: It sounds like there’s something going to.

PETER MENZIES: Be encouraging my children to post comments on my column saying the Hub doesn’t pay Menzies enough money. Pay him more. Yeah, yeah, you can. You can use it for all kinds of purposes, is only my point. I do think. I do think that speaking as a former publisher, once you publish something, you become legally accountable for it or you risk that. And if Tara says something nasty about me in the comments on my Hub column, I’m not going to sue. Well, I might sue Tara, too, but I’ll go after the guy with money. So I figure the Hub probably has money, so I’ll go after the Hub and primarily and just terror on the side. I’ll accept an apology for you, but that’s where I think you have to be careful. I think there’s a legal aspect to the comments in that regard.

HARRISON LOWMAN: It’s been humbling at times when I’ve done something and then I get constructive criticism or just criticism, and it feels like a dagger in the heart. But then you realize it feels like a dagger in the heart because you realize often they have a point like, I should have done better here. I should have done this. It’s also elicited. I’ve had ideas from comment sections. Oh, I didn’t think of it that way. I’m gonna do something else on this. Like, you know, making the public feel heard, I think, is one way we get those numbers in terms of trust in media, in Canada going up again in my mind.

TARA HENLEY: Peter, you said yes, and I think this is especially true on platforms like Substack where the level of conversation is quite deep and quite thoughtful and you really get to know the people who are commenting. And I do think it’s helpful. I’ve also had that experience where I’ve had blind spots pointed out to me and it is extremely helpful for sure.

HARRISON LOWMAN: I love this article. Peter, you sent me this article from the Anti Hate Network where they literally did a story going through National Post comments. This percentage of people were likely white who commented on this and you know, gauging, you know, the threat of said fringe group in their eyes based on the comments section. I thought that was very weird, eh?

PETER MENZIES: Yeah, it was. And I think that raises an issue going forward in terms of future legislation, Online Harms act online, like Britain’s Online Safeties Act. Because I mean that that article in on the website of the Anti Hate Network indicated to me that they intended to patrol these comments. And, and if there was legislation enabling it, they would, you know, they or their supporters would be filing complaints about it in terms of, to whoever the Digital Safety Commissioner, I believe, was the body envisioned by the Online Harms Act. So some, in some, in some cases you may see companies getting out of the comments business just to avoid the hassle of having to be fined and pursued by the Digital Safety Commissioner. Because again, the way the Online Harms act was written, they’re not going to go after the poster, they’re going to go after the company that allowed it to be posted. And that I don’t think is a very good for democracy, but if you were a publisher, that’s how you would protect yourself.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Okay, very. Lastly, we have a bouquet delivered from Tara Henley to Mike Moffat’s outfit, the Missing Middle. You can explain to us what that is, tell us why they deserve some flowers this week for coverage given and what they were writing about.

TARA HENLEY: Yeah, so this is on the heels of a debate during this summer about the housing crisis in the mainstream and that the idea of relinquishing homeownership as a goal for the next generation. You had a number of people advancing that argument in the, in the press and basically saying that you don’t need to buy a house, that aspiration may not be helpful and that you can in fact raise a family in an apartment. And one particular piece in the Toronto Star by a U of T professor arguing that housing stability, which is really important of course, does not necessarily hinge on home ownership, that you can have a Stable life in an apartment if the right conditions exist. And the missing middle published a piece about why we should not be focusing policy necessarily on renting, that we should be focusing policy on choice. And I just thought that was such an important point to make in the, in the current climate. And the point that the missing middle was making is that this has reverberations beyond just housing. That there is an element of agency that’s really important for the next generation and also well being. And I, I guess I just wanted to touch very briefly on, on both of those points.

I mean, apartments in this country are not designed for adult life. I’ve lived in many, many of them. They often do. Or a dining room table for example, or even a spare nook where you could have family come and stay for a weekend. They’re just very, very small and I think it’s very difficult to have an adult life in them. And they are also very unstable. They change hands a lot and it’s not possible to kind of build a long term life and to move to the next stages of your life as an adult in apartments as they are designed right now. But then the well being piece I thought was also really interesting too with the missing middle pointing that economic anxiety and this, you know, more bigger malaise that comes from it is we’re seeing that in our politics with young men in particular and that we need the next generation to have a sense of fairness and a sense of agency and a sense of well being and to diminish the intergenerational tensions that are so pronounced right now. So I just thought it was a really excellent, very thoughtful piece and added a lot to the debate that we saw in recent months.

HARRISON LOWMAN: I liked most of it except for this kind of partisan shot at the end. Them saying we need to encourage homeownership because it will prevent right wing populism, create cultural conservatism and prevent redistributive policies. I thought that was a bit weird. Peter, any final thoughts on this and intergenerational conflicts? We get along but you know, not all of us.

PETER MENZIES: Generations do sometimes. So I’m very concerned. I’m going to get a little T shirt that says it’s not my fault and wear it around so that I don’t take the abuse. Honest, I tried. I didn’t hope for these outcomes. I think the young generation has every reason to be angry with the older generation. I think the baby boom has been a largely very self serving generation. I think following my parents generation which saved the world from fascism. I think we should be ashamed of ourselves. Wow.

HARRISON LOWMAN: Okay. Well we’ll have to pick up that conversation next week. You should join my dad who’s a self described self hating boomer as well. Maybe you guys can go for drinks and I’ll join you and you can pay for me. Okay guys, thank you so much for joining us this week. I’ll see you again in two weeks. We’ll get into more generational conflict. Trucker Sentencing Comment Section yes people, remember to comment on this episode. We want to hear about it. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’ll see you again soon.

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Full Press discusses whether mainstream media properly portrayed the Freedom Convoy, following the soft sentencing of lead organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. They explore the appointment of conservative radio show host Ben Mulroney as host of Global News’ flagship political show The West Block. Finally, they debate whether news outlets are limiting free speech by scrapping their comment sections. You can listen to this episode on Amazon, Apple, and Spotify. Program Transcript This is an automated transcript. Please check against delivery. HARRISON LOWMAN: Welcome to Full Press, a media criticism podcast where listeners and viewers can escape the mainstream media echo chambers for precious 35 minutes every two weeks. I’m Harrison Lowman, managing editor of the Hub. What are we going to talk about today? Following the sentencing of two of the Freedom Convoy’s main leaders, we’ll ask if the media properly portrayed those protests three years ago. And the son of a former PM goes from being a radio personality celebs thought leader to hosting one of Canada’s most, I think, respected current affairs programs in Canada. How’s that going? And finally, are outlets ditching free speech by ditching their comment sections? We’ll get into that with Peter and Tara, speaking of those two. Hello, you two. Welcome back to the show. It’s great to see you after a few weeks. How are things? PETER MENZIES: Great. Good to see you looking well rested. HARRISON LOWMAN: I’m trying, I’m trying. We actually need makeup, Amal. I think because I can get rid of the bags in my eyes, maybe. Okay, beyond babies, let’s talk about the Freedom Convoy potentially going free. Tamara Leach, Chris Barber. Chris Barber, right, guys. I get his name right. Found guilty of mischief in counseling others to disobey a court order earlier this year. Leach found guilty of mischief bar both were not guilty on several other counts, each given. And I think this is much less than what a lot thought. 18 month conditional sentences. 12 months house arrest. They are allowed to visit friends and family with limited outings. Then six months they have a curfew where they can’t go out between 10pm and 5am and 100 hours of community service. Tara, let me start with you. This is the next chapter of the the Freedom Convoy saga. We’ve had the commission ruling, we’ve had the federal court ruling where they said the Emergencies act shouldn’t have been invoked. Now we have this. What sort of picture is being painted in terms of how the media portrayed this versus what other institutions had to think about this, them being the court system. And what do you make of it all? TARA HENLEY: Well, I do think it’s very interesting. This is probably one of, I think, the biggest stories that we will cover in our lifetimes. This is a huge moment historically in the country, and I think it’s appropriate now to look back and decide whether we, as a press with the first draft of history got it right. And I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that. I do not think that we got it right. The narrative at the time was that this was a group of extremists, violent extremists. From the fringe, right wing, violent extremists from the fringe who were early advocating for the overthrow of the government and were funded by foreign actors. None of those things have held up as facts over time. At the POAC Commission, we heard law enforcement say that they did not think that this group represented a national security threat. We heard the federal court then rule that there was no emergency that justified the invocation of the Emergencies Act. And now we have had another court say that the two main organizers were essentially guilty of mischief. And so I think we have to face facts now that while this protest was disorderly, disruptive, super annoying to residents, distasteful, maybe has some unsavory characters, that the dominant narrative about these protests is just not factually accurate. And I would like to see us go back and correct the record. HARRISON LOWMAN: The Crown wanted eight years of jail for Barber, seven for Leech for being key organizers in this, and the defense wanted an absolute discharge with no criminal records. I see those two sides of the story. I’ll say personal experience, places I worked may or may not have told us at the time when we were covering it. You are not permitted to speak to convoy protesters because of this. Fear that. And yes, as you admit to Tara, there were some that were conspiratorial. There was a subset that had some outlandish plan to get in touch with the Governor General and upend the government. But as is with many of these things, it’s like a convention. You get a whole mix of different people. Members of my family went by to check it out, who were skeptical about vaccine mandates. So you got a whole mix of people who were very disruptive to the people in Ottawa. I can understand, if I had my baby, you imagine how much less sleep I’d have now if I lived near Parliament Hill at that point in time. But then there’s also this. And Peter, you can get this, too. Remember the Nazi flag? This Nazi flag that was probably some protest, basically saying the Trudeau government is authoritarian. That was then expanded to represent the entire protest. They’re all Nazis. We should be fearful of them. It just kind of went off the rails and legitimate criticism became legitimate criticism. And I don’t know, it was a lot like our approach to the graves around that period, too. Peter, what did you. You make of this and how we should consider what happened all those years ago? PETER MENZIES: Yeah, I think when you reflect back on it. When I reflect back on it anyway, you see it as a time of panic, controlled panic in many cases, but it was definitely a time of Panic. Everybody was frightened. The government was actually trying to make sure everybody was frightened so that they would take certain, certain measures, et cetera, et cetera. People did not know what the outcomes of things would be. People didn’t know whether masks worked or whether they didn’ so everything, everything got extreme. So what happens is, I mean, you remember the, remember the guy who was lighting an apartment building on fire? Remember that story going around? There was, there was, there was a lot of bad journalism. There was some good journalism though, right? I mean, we have to remember that news, you know, the old adage, newspapers only report when airplanes land safely there. We will remember the bad bits and not remember some of the better bits. But I do think it would be wise for all organizations, particularly media, who are not very good at this at all, to look back over their shoulder and reflect on how they covered this event. For that matter, the government of Canada should be having some sort of inquiry to reflect on how it conducted its affairs and what we can learn from it. I Many countries have done that. Canada hasn’t at all. HARRISON LOWMAN: Didn’t we already do that? Peter, Wasn’t that the commission just the Emergencies act, like the focus on the. PETER MENZIES: Government specific to the Emergencies Act. But I don’t think it got into, you know, why were we told we didn’t need masks and then. HARRISON LOWMAN: Oh, you needed on Covid. TARA HENLEY: Oh yeah, yeah, Covid inquiry. PETER MENZIES: Yeah, yeah, a Covid inquiry. In terms of that anyway, the point being that you can always, you are only going to learn for your mistakes if you acknowledge them. And I don’t think media are very good at acknowledging their mistakes. I think in the Lichen Barber case here, everybody, there’s a lot of other stuff going on to be fair, but everybody’s just going to put their head down and go forward and we’ll all pretend it never happened. HARRISON LOWMAN: I remember at the time too there was this thinking, as Tara said, like there was push from up high to do stories around it being foreign funded because certainly this couldn’t be homegrown. And this idea as well, listen, there were links to Canadian veterans and former RCMP officers, but that they were like at the helm of this thing and driving it. I remember that was one. I remember journalists saying they were accosted as they were walking through the protests or at least saying they were unsafe. I don’t know to what extent that was. I know there were some choice words for Evan Solomon and David Cochran when they were doing stand up interviews near there, but Tara, let me get your take on this. I thought this was an interesting point made by the judge. The judge said the gap between what each side was pushing for in terms of punishment illustrated the political schism in the Canadian political landscape. And then said, politics, though, has no place inside this courtroom and plays no role in the determination of what is fair, just and an appropriate sentence. What do you think about politics, role in journalism and what say it should have in terms of how we report things? And did it kind of leak into our reporting to a fair amount then all those years ago? TARA HENLEY: I think so. I really think so. And I think that we gotta stand back and just think about the facts of this case. I mean, the same way that generations now look back on the October crisis, future generations will be looking back on this and what will they see? They will see a demonstration, which, as I said, was unruly and, you know, potentially uncouth and all of those things. But no violence. There was no violence. Why? Why is that? HARRISON LOWMAN: They’re going to say back to you, they’ll say, look at Coutts. They’ll say, look at, you know, the economy was stopped at the border here in Ontario. Like, what’s your response to them when they say, you know, you’re not, you’ve got to expand your lands, what, wider across the country? This is why it was invoked for sure. TARA HENLEY: Of course we do. But I think that if you’re focusing on Ottawa, there was no violence and the border had already been cleared by the time the invocation of the Emergencies act was brought in. So I think we just have to think really critically about this and understand that these two main organizers, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, did not have criminal records, were repeatedly calling for peaceful protest. Any large scale protest, you’re going to find characters, you’re going to find unsavory things. That’s just the nature of mass protest. I just think we have to think really critically about this. And I understand the position the media was in. I was of course working then too. It, you know, it was very difficult to figure out what was actually going on on the ground. But I still think that we have a duty to remain calm and to try to not be alarmist, to not jump to conclusions, not basically try to scare the public, which when you look back at some of this coverage, is incredibly alarmist. So I just think we need a bit of a look back on this. HARRISON LOWMAN: One and at the very least talk to them. I remember when they came here in Toronto, luckily, you know, some barriers had been put up, meaning trucks didn’t make their way to Queen’s Park. So you didn’t have that noisy brouhaha, but just go out and speak to them. Like, I remember being in a crowd of trucker supporters and they were talking about how much they hated the media. And I stepped into the circle and said, I’m a member of the media, and pulled up this press pass and they all kind of like stopped and got bug eyed. And then we actually had an honest conversation. Yes, they said some wild things about how the government wants to track us and there’s comparisons to the Holocaust and we talked about how that’s overblown and does a disservice to people who actually died in the Holocaust. But I don’t know, there’s just interviewing the people who are mad about xyz. I think that’s the very least you should do. Peter. It felt like we wanted to make this in the Media. Our January 6th. PETER MENZIES: Right. HARRISON LOWMAN: It was almost like disappointment that it didn’t reach that level. Is that the sense you got. PETER MENZIES: Kind of? Yeah. I mean, there’s no question that, you know, two things. First of all, there were weird elements inside the convoy. I mean, there were some folks. I would probably sit down and just shake my head and say, good heavens, where did you get such an idea in terms of that? Yet at the same time, there was no violence. They were, if at times not fully that well informed, generally honest in their intentions. But we also have to remember the process that led up to it is that those folks who were resisting vaccinations and that sort of stuff, they had been demonized and they had been made to be others. And then they started to behave like others and they resisted. It’s easy to forget that. I mean, I can, I remember there were helicopters in the air over the outdoor ice rinks near where I live, making sure that no more than I forget the exact number five or six people were ever on the ice at one time. Right. That’s, that’s kind of creepy. It’s more than kind of creepy. It’s very authoritarian and people will resist that. I think the story is that you can only push people on their, on the subjugation of their freedom so far. And they will resist too much order and people fight for liberty. Too much liberty and people fight for order. That’s, that’s, that’s the history of the world right there. And I think that we were all kind of encouraged to treat those people as a mortal threat to the rest of us, perhaps without justification. I thought everybody should get vaccinated for sure, but I never thought that you could actually force people to be vaccinated. I would have wanted to encourage people to be vaccinated, but I resisted the idea that the state had a role in forcing people to put something in their body that they did not want to take. TARA HENLEY: Canada’s oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it’s the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense and more. You see, we’re building more than a strong oil sands sector. We’re helping to build a stronger Canada. We’re Pathways alliance, six of Canada’s largest oil sands companies working together to help grow Canada’s economy. Learn more@pathwaysalliance CA there’s still a future. HARRISON LOWMAN: To be had here. There’s a $9 million civil lawsuit for Barber’s role in the blockade. They want his truck. They wanted to take away his truck. That was a part of the protests as punishment. I think we’ll look back at this and it’ll be a big moment for the turn the Conservative party took. Whether MPs that sidled up to this movement or didn’t, I think it was a defining moment and acclaimed o’ Toole’s leadership as well. Let’s go into block two. I call this Big Ben. Ben Mulroney, the son of Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is going to host global News flagship political affair show the West Bloc. He’s had a few episodes already. He’s taken over for Mercedes Stevenson, who is on mat leave. He’s a former host of E Talk, Canadian Idol, if you remember that, and your mourning. However, he’s also, and he’s upfront about it, definitely a conservative. He says things like, my bias is there for all to see. I’m not a journalist. I’m not gonna abide by your neutrality purity tests. But I do know how to conduct a fair and respectful interview. He said this in response to a bunch of criticism that’s come out saying, how can you host what is supposed to be an objective national Current Affair show, given your interests that are there for all to see, your familial connections, Hill Times reporting, he donates to the Conservative Party hosted events. Anyway, taking all this into account, Tara, what do you make of this move and what it says about whatever a host television personality is supposed to be in this country? TARA HENLEY: I think you can look at this from a number of different angles. I mean, on the one hand, I like Ben and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do. And I also think that it’s a healthy development in this country to have more viewpoint diversity throughout the media. And so I think the move of hiring someone who’s conservative is a good development and shows that maybe we’re coming back to a little bit of sanity. However, I do really believe in objectivity, and not as some kind of ethereal concept that we all have no biases, but in the actual rules of objectivity. What does that mean? It means that we don’t have conflicts of interest. It means that we don’t participate in the political process as donors, as protesters. And that I think that objectivity is really important to uphold trust. And I would like to see that more consistently enforced. If each network has rules on that, I would like to see them enforce that across the political spectrum in the same way. And I would also like to see other media expect that if, you know, if they believe, believe in objectivity, then let’s apply that standard, which I think we should, and I do believe in it, across the spectrum to everybody. HARRISON LOWMAN: I’m getting echoes, kind of like the Barry Weiss thing here. I’m wondering what Peter’s dictionary looks like and whether he sees major differences in definitions when it comes to TV personality, journalist, broadcaster. Ben calls himself a connector at one point. Entertainer, host. Does any of that matter? Is it all getting flattened out in 2025? People care less about the serious man behind the desk, giving both sides. What do you think, Peter? PETER MENZIES: I think people will be fine if the questions are fair and they’re applied equally to people of all different backgrounds. The BBC doesn’t call folks in that role journalists. They call them presenters and they’re interviewers. And Mulroney has a long history back with CTV as being a presenter and interviewer conducting interviews. I find the sort of squealing among the journalists journalism crowd that, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. He’s not a journalist to be quite silly. I mean, he’s a temporary replacement. Nobody actually knows how to define a journalist anyway. The Debates Commission came out with a decision just last week saying they had scanned the entire industry and there was no consensus on what a journalist is. HARRISON LOWMAN: But can we say that there’s a gap between what Mercedes Stevenson is and the person that will be replacing him? PETER MENZIES: Right. HARRISON LOWMAN: He’s fashioned himself for the last few years. He left E Talk and he talked about making space for racialized people to fill his shoes. And over the last few years, he’s fashioned himself to be a very Successful conservative host, commentator, etc. And I’m just saying, like, there’s clearly, like, that’s not what Mercedes Stevenson is. And you know, to replace one with another. PETER MENZIES: What is Mercedes? What is Mercedes, though? HARRISON LOWMAN: Mercedes is a. I’m not trying to. PETER MENZIES: I’m not trying to give you a hard time. HARRISON LOWMAN: No, please. Do we need more disagreement on that? Mercedes Stevenson is a journalist. PETER MENZIES: Trying to illustrate the point that nobody really knows what the. How to define a journalist. I have no objection to Milroti being on there. I. Any more than I would have any objection to most of the CBC staff who are on their shows. I don’t think it’s appropriate to be donating to a political party. I would agree. And he has done that in the past. But again, he’s a temporary. He’s a temporary replacement for that sort of stuff. So it, you know, the proof of the pudding will be how many people watch the show. Not a lot of people watch those shows. The journalistic and political community watch them and they all make a big deal about them because they don’t have anything else to do on Sunday morning. But, but I don’t think it’s. Honestly, I think it’s. I think it’s. I think the whole industry just looks silly by getting itself in a, in a snit over something like this. He does a good job or he does a bad job, end of story. HARRISON LOWMAN: Just to answer your question, Peter, Mercedes Stevens is someone who, you know, cut her teeth reporting on the Canadian Armed Forces. She’s pretty respected on both sides, I would say. She does a fair interview and her research. PETER MENZIES: I can remember receiving op ed pitches from her when she was at the ufc. That’s how old I am. HARRISON LOWMAN: Yeah, she thinks she has an academic background too. Listen, Ben says he will behave differently. He told his radio show show listeners, if I sound differently, you know, on one day and then differently when I’m hosting this show, it’s because, like, when you’re in church, you know, you got to sort of put your tie on and, and, you know, change the way you talk a bit. So it’ll be interesting to watch this stuff and see, you know, that he’s sort of playing both roles. Tara, any final thoughts on this and what it means? Is it pressers sending at all or is this just a big much to do about nothing? TARA HENLEY: Well, I think the media coverage of it is largely much to do about nothing, although I still reserve the point that I think we have to maintain these rules in news gathering and news sharing information networks. But I Think it’ll be a wait and see thing? I think we’ll see. As Peter said, if he conducts really fair interviews and is a consummate professional, then I think a lot of these objections will fall by the wayside. HARRISON LOWMAN: That’s the big thing, right? I think it’s interesting if people are able to look at someone and say, I know what you think about something. I know your biases and your opinions. But I know that when you’re in the chair speaking of the person across from you, you give them a fair shake, no matter what their views are, et cetera. I think the key is like fairness that people are desperate for. I don’t not be tricked not to have things exaggerated in some ways when you’re in that role in a show like this, to be fair. So I don’t know. We’ll see what happens there. Our final block here, we’ll call no Comment. This is one of my obsessions, Peter, and I hope it is yours too. The Hub is opening up a comment section on all our pieces. So if you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll be able to take part and actually have a back and forth and give us your input in terms of what you think about our pieces. I think there’s not enough of this. The CBC blocks like all of its comments due to harassment and what they call the attacks at reports. Reporters have to think about their anxiety and well being is what was said in a memo. You can’t comment on Facebook. You couldn’t before it was blocked. You can’t do it after it was blocked in Canada. They’re off Twitter because Elon Musk called them like paid for government media, if you remember that, that caused their exit. Can’t comment on their YouTube videos or on their site. And you know, CTV has comments on his site. Global has comments on YouTube but none of its site. Anyway. There’s a whole array of different comments that have been turned on or turned off around media and I wonder if it’s limiting free speech. You’re putting stuff out into the world. The whole point of the Internet was to connect us all, but it doesn’t feel like there’s feedback often. Peter, what do you think about this? Is my obsession worth something here or am I making again much to do about nothing? PETER MENZIES: I don’t think you’re making much to do about nothing. I mean, I nervously checked my column in the Hub this morning to see what comments had been made, to see if I should be blushing or if I had made some grievous error. I think comments have to be moderated. Comments are the letters to the editor of the Modern Age. They’re a great opportunity to engage people in debate, allow people to sort of speak back. You know, if I say something in a column, you know, I’ve had my say. I got to, I should be. Be comfortable having somebody post a contrary opinion saying, menzies, you’re wrong. This is, this is where you’re wrong. Blah, blah, blah. They get, I get my say. They get their say. I think that’s fair. But they do have to be moderated and the CBC certainly should be engaging people in debate because that’s part of its core purpose is to, is to have that debate. But you do have to moderate them because it can, you know, and set rules and say you have to agree to these rules and you have to use your own name and, and have a, I think, and have a, a whole set of rules around it. I think having, allowing. I think allowing people to post anonymously is dangerous. You get, you get into bots and that sort of stuff. But I’m, I’m very much all about the idea of debate and that people should, should have that opportunity and have their say and that, that the opinions shouldn’t be limited to those within the industry who can therefore look like some sort of priesthood, some sort of gnostics that know it all. They need to be open to feedback from the public. HARRISON LOWMAN: Tara, what do you think? Because I actually think, just to encourage more debate here, I actually think they don’t need to be moderated. I think it can gauge a public square of ideas beyond the most egregious, horrible, racist stuff that should come down. I think it should just be. I don’t think it should be. I don’t think it should be the responsibility of media outlets to be, you know, having to sort through this because that’s often the excuse given we don’t have the resources to devote someone to pick through these comments, which I think is an actual waste of time. The Globe does this, the stars comments as well. The post does. I don’t know how much time they devote on their site to picking through this. This may come back to bite me. We’ll get some horrible comments after this, like on this exact video. But Tara, what do you think? My previous employer got rid of comments and I basically kept expressing this and they said, harrison, stop beating a dead horse and shut up about this and just wait for letters and emails to come in from the most frustrated boomers, which I think is not fair. You need comments in real time, feedback from listeners and readers, whether you like it or not. What do you think? TARA HENLEY: Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think that the public gets very upset when they cannot comment on something. I think that’s only fair. It’s basically a sort of democratic principle that they should have their say in the public square as well. And. Yeah, but I will also say that people do say pretty outrageous things in the comment section when they’re not moderated and that it can get pretty hairy. And I think that we sort of have to decide as an industry and as a society that do we see what gets posted in the comments section as any sort of responsibility to the platform or do we not? I think that’s a question that needs to be answered. And then just from a journalist perspective, I’ve. I’ve been a journalist for 25 years now. I was a journalist before comment sections and after comment sections. I think probably 18 of those years, maybe 20, I don’t know, has been with comment sections. And I. I think it’s complicated things a lot. HARRISON LOWMAN: It sounds like there’s something going to. PETER MENZIES: Be encouraging my children to post comments on my column saying the Hub doesn’t pay Menzies enough money. Pay him more. Yeah, yeah, you can. You can use it for all kinds of purposes, is only my point. I do think. I do think that speaking as a former publisher, once you publish something, you become legally accountable for it or you risk that. And if Tara says something nasty about me in the comments on my Hub column, I’m not going to sue. Well, I might sue Tara, too, but I’ll go after the guy with money. So I figure the Hub probably has money, so I’ll go after the Hub and primarily and just terror on the side. I’ll accept an apology for you, but that’s where I think you have to be careful. I think there’s a legal aspect to the comments in that regard. HARRISON LOWMAN: It’s been humbling at times when I’ve done something and then I get constructive criticism or just criticism, and it feels like a dagger in the heart. But then you realize it feels like a dagger in the heart because you realize often they have a point like, I should have done better here. I should have done this. It’s also elicited. I’ve had ideas from comment sections. Oh, I didn’t think of it that way. I’m gonna do something else on this. Like, you know, making the public feel heard, I think, is one way we get those numbers in terms of trust in media, in Canada going up again in my mind. TARA HENLEY: Peter, you said yes, and I think this is especially true on platforms like Substack where the level of conversation is quite deep and quite thoughtful and you really get to know the people who are commenting. And I do think it’s helpful. I’ve also had that experience where I’ve had blind spots pointed out to me and it is extremely helpful for sure. HARRISON LOWMAN: I love this article. Peter, you sent me this article from the Anti Hate Network where they literally did a story going through National Post comments. This percentage of people were likely white who commented on this and you know, gauging, you know, the threat of said fringe group in their eyes based on the comments section. I thought that was very weird, eh? PETER MENZIES: Yeah, it was. And I think that raises an issue going forward in terms of future legislation, Online Harms act online, like Britain’s Online Safeties Act. Because I mean that that article in on the website of the Anti Hate Network indicated to me that they intended to patrol these comments. And, and if there was legislation enabling it, they would, you know, they or their supporters would be filing complaints about it in terms of, to whoever the Digital Safety Commissioner, I believe, was the body envisioned by the Online Harms Act. So some, in some, in some cases you may see companies getting out of the comments business just to avoid the hassle of having to be fined and pursued by the Digital Safety Commissioner. Because again, the way the Online Harms act was written, they’re not going to go after the poster, they’re going to go after the company that allowed it to be posted. And that I don’t think is a very good for democracy, but if you were a publisher, that’s how you would protect yourself. HARRISON LOWMAN: Okay, very. Lastly, we have a bouquet delivered from Tara Henley to Mike Moffat’s outfit, the Missing Middle. You can explain to us what that is, tell us why they deserve some flowers this week for coverage given and what they were writing about. TARA HENLEY: Yeah, so this is on the heels of a debate during this summer about the housing crisis in the mainstream and that the idea of relinquishing homeownership as a goal for the next generation. You had a number of people advancing that argument in the, in the press and basically saying that you don’t need to buy a house, that aspiration may not be helpful and that you can in fact raise a family in an apartment. And one particular piece in the Toronto Star by a U of T professor arguing that housing stability, which is really important of course, does not necessarily hinge on home ownership, that you can have a Stable life in an apartment if the right conditions exist. And the missing middle published a piece about why we should not be focusing policy necessarily on renting, that we should be focusing policy on choice. And I just thought that was such an important point to make in the, in the current climate. And the point that the missing middle was making is that this has reverberations beyond just housing. That there is an element of agency that’s really important for the next generation and also well being. And I, I guess I just wanted to touch very briefly on, on both of those points. I mean, apartments in this country are not designed for adult life. I’ve lived in many, many of them. They often do. Or a dining room table for example, or even a spare nook where you could have family come and stay for a weekend. They’re just very, very small and I think it’s very difficult to have an adult life in them. And they are also very unstable. They change hands a lot and it’s not possible to kind of build a long term life and to move to the next stages of your life as an adult in apartments as they are designed right now. But then the well being piece I thought was also really interesting too with the missing middle pointing that economic anxiety and this, you know, more bigger malaise that comes from it is we’re seeing that in our politics with young men in particular and that we need the next generation to have a sense of fairness and a sense of agency and a sense of well being and to diminish the intergenerational tensions that are so pronounced right now. So I just thought it was a really excellent, very thoughtful piece and added a lot to the debate that we saw in recent months. HARRISON LOWMAN: I liked most of it except for this kind of partisan shot at the end. Them saying we need to encourage homeownership because it will prevent right wing populism, create cultural conservatism and prevent redistributive policies. I thought that was a bit weird. Peter, any final thoughts on this and intergenerational conflicts? We get along but you know, not all of us. PETER MENZIES: Generations do sometimes. So I’m very concerned. I’m going to get a little T shirt that says it’s not my fault and wear it around so that I don’t take the abuse. Honest, I tried. I didn’t hope for these outcomes. I think the young generation has every reason to be angry with the older generation. I think the baby boom has been a largely very self serving generation. I think following my parents generation which saved the world from fascism. I think we should be ashamed of ourselves. Wow. HARRISON LOWMAN: Okay. Well we’ll have to pick up that conversation next week. You should join my dad who’s a self described self hating boomer as well. Maybe you guys can go for drinks and I’ll join you and you can pay for me. Okay guys, thank you so much for joining us this week. I’ll see you again in two weeks. We’ll get into more generational conflict. Trucker Sentencing Comment Section yes people, remember to comment on this episode. We want to hear about it. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’ll see you again soon.

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