People occasionally ask me how I can still watch mainstream political shows like CTV’s Question Period or CBC’s Power & Politics. I tell them that, although it’s not always easy, it is essential to hear all sides of an issue. And because of the nature of my work, I have the time for it. But what about those people who don’t have time to carefully follow politics? What about the people who spend most of their time trying to put food on the table in the growing wasteland that is Mark Carney’s “technical recession?” Fortunately, there are alternatives in this era of digital media that are, up to this point, easily accessible for average Canadians. Of course, the Western Standard is a successful example of such an independent approach. Another example I’ve found reliable over time is the YouTube show Northern Perspective (NP), run by the dynamic duo of Ryan and Tanya from Hamilton, Ontario. Considering how much I’ve personally gleaned from them on politics, I thought it necessary to interview Ryan and Tanya to see what makes them tick. I began by asking why exactly they chose to make content focused on Canadian politics. “We needed a way to help subsidize our son's therapy because the provincial government had ended all of the autism therapy at that point,” Ryan explained. “But the other primary reason was we saw the evolution of the state of Canada, both from a cultural and legislative perspective, and we looked at our son, and he seemed to be one of the main demographics that was starting to be demonized.”From there, it was off to the races. In just over three years, NP has amassed 240,000 YouTube subscribers and posts shows daily.On June 20, NP posted an analysis of the last day of the spring session of federal Parliament, which ended with a bang. For the first time ever, a massive number of bills (8 given Royal Assent and one passed to the Senate) were rammed through simultaneously and with almost no debate. This was conducted using a so-called programming motion. .Like most Canadians, I’d never heard of a programming motion. I could have spent hours going through AI answers and Google searches to try and comprehend what on earth a programming motion was and how the Carney Liberals used it to rush through so many bills, but NP had already done the tedious legwork. They presented it in an entertaining half-hour show, complete with music and clips from Parliament, beginning with Ryan’s catchphrase: “Let’s take a look!”“The reason why it’s called a programming motion,” Ryan elaborated further, “is because it’s setting a strict program for a bill and it must follow this program […] it goes through the entire life cycle of that bill.”That doesn’t sound worrisome, but in their show, Ryan revealed that the programming motion can effectively “create reality” because it can deem events in the life cycle of a bill, such as debate, to have occurred when they have effectively not occurred. Such was the case for the contentious Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. Despite having almost 100 suggested amendments requiring substantial input from stakeholders and experts, C-22 was rammed through to the Senate on June 18 after a grand total of 30 minutes of debate. “By the Liberal Party only acting in the way they want,” Tanya said, “or only putting legislation through the way they want — without debate — it effectively silences half the country.”That assessment fits in well with everything I’ve studied, observed, and written about Carney’s Liberals. But I asked Ryan and Tanya for their overall perspective.“It goes to show this pattern of Mark Carney,” Ryan said. “The longer he’s in Parliament, the more that he demonstrates to Canadians he has a disdain for it.”.That was a politically charged thing to say, and I’d never thought of it in quite that way. But considering Carney’s abysmal Parliamentary attendance record, his leaving debates in Parliament early, and his choice of motions to push through bills effectively without Parliamentary debate, it all added up. That led me to emphatically ask if the folks at NP believed that average Canadians were aware of how dire Carney’s disdain for a democratic institution like Parliament was.“When it comes to average Canadians, the answer is ‘no.’” Ryan said flatly. But then he continued with something I did not expect. “The average Canadian does not watch our show.”That brought me to the crux of the matter. Whether it’s NP or the Western Standard, not enough average Canadians are yet engaged with independent media exposing the truth about our politics. In the West, it’s sometimes assumed that this is the way the Laurentian elite want things to be and that Easterners are willingly eating out of the hands of their “masters.” But I’m not sure the latter is true. Instead, I think that Easterners might become more informed and activated if they are given more opportunities to do so in a timely fashion. Perhaps foreseeing this, the Western Standard has already expanded further into Ontario.I believe that NP, though politically charged, has reliably presented the truth in Canadian politics and is a useful and thought-provoking show. Their rapid growth suggests they have some of the necessary ingredients to pull in more average Canadians. I find those qualities to include openness, honesty, and a well-known quote with which Ryan left me: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
