Podcast appearances and mentions of catherine mckenna

After a hiatus, we've officially restarted the Uncommons podcast, and our first long-form interview is with Professor Taylor Owen to discuss the ever changing landscape of the digital world, the fast emergence of AI and the implications for our kids, consumer safety and our democracy.Taylor Owen's work focuses on the intersection of media, technology and public policy and can be found at taylorowen.com. He is the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications and the founding Director of The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University where he is also an Associate Professor. He is the host of the Globe and Mail's Machines Like Us podcast and author of several books.Taylor also joined me for this discussion more than 5 years ago now. And a lot has happened in that time.Upcoming episodes will include guests Tanya Talaga and an episode focused on the border bill C-2, with experts from The Citizen Lab and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.We'll also be hosting a live event at the Naval Club of Toronto with Catherine McKenna, who will be launching her new book Run Like a Girl. Register for free through Eventbrite. As always, if you have ideas for future guests or topics, email us at info@beynate.ca Chapters:0:29 Setting the Stage1:44 Core Problems & Challenges4:31 Information Ecosystem Crisis10:19 Signals of Reliability & Policy Challenges14:33 Legislative Efforts18:29 Online Harms Act Deep Dive25:31 AI Fraud29:38 Platform Responsibility32:55 Future Policy DirectionFurther Reading and Listening:Public rules for big tech platforms with Taylor Owen — Uncommons Podcast“How the Next Government can Protect Canada's Information Ecosystem.” Taylor Owen with Helen Hayes, The Globe and Mail, April 7, 2025.Machines Like Us PodcastBill C-63Transcript:Nate Erskine-Smith00:00-00:43Welcome to Uncommons, I'm Nate Erskine-Smith. This is our first episode back after a bit of a hiatus, and we are back with a conversation focused on AI safety, digital governance, and all of the challenges with regulating the internet. I'm joined by Professor Taylor Owen. He's an expert in these issues. He's been writing about these issues for many years. I actually had him on this podcast more than five years ago, and he's been a huge part of getting us in Canada to where we are today. And it's up to this government to get us across the finish line, and that's what we talk about. Taylor, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. So this feels like deja vu all over again, because I was going back before you arrived this morning and you joined this podcast in April of 2020 to talk about platform governance.Taylor Owen00:43-00:44It's a different world.Taylor00:45-00:45In some ways.Nate Erskine-Smith00:45-01:14Yeah. Well, yeah, a different world for sure in many ways, but also the same challenges in some ways too. Additional challenges, of course. But I feel like in some ways we've come a long way because there's been lots of consultation. There have been some legislative attempts at least, but also we haven't really accomplished the thing. So let's talk about set the stage. Some of the same challenges from five years ago, but some new challenges. What are the challenges? What are the problems we're trying to solve? Yeah, I mean, many of them are the same, right?Taylor Owen01:14-03:06I mean, this is part of the technology moves fast. But when you look at the range of things citizens are concerned about when they and their children and their friends and their families use these sets of digital technologies that shape so much of our lives, many things are the same. So they're worried about safety. They're worried about algorithmic content and how that's feeding into what they believe and what they think. They're worried about polarization. We're worried about the integrity of our democracy and our elections. We're worried about sort of some of the more acute harms of like real risks to safety, right? Like children taking their own lives and violence erupting, political violence emerging. Like these things have always been present as a part of our digital lives. And that's what we were concerned about five years ago, right? When we talked about those harms, that was roughly the list. Now, the technologies we were talking about at the time were largely social media platforms, right? So that was the main way five years ago that we shared, consumed information in our digital politics and our digital public lives. And that is what's changing slightly. Now, those are still prominent, right? We're still on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook to a certain degree. But we do now have a new layer of AI and particularly chatbots. And I think a big question we face in this conversation in this, like, how do we develop policies that maximize the benefits of digital technologies and minimize the harms, which is all this is trying to do. Do we need new tools for AI or some of the things we worked on for so many years to get right, the still the right tools for this new set of technologies with chatbots and various consumer facing AI interfaces?Nate Erskine-Smith03:07-03:55My line in politics has always been, especially around privacy protections, that we are increasingly living our lives online. And especially, you know, my kids are growing up online and our laws need to reflect that reality. All of the challenges you've articulated to varying degrees exist in offline spaces, but can be incredibly hard. The rules we have can be incredibly hard to enforce at a minimum in the online space. And then some rules are not entirely fit for purpose and they need to be updated in the online space. It's interesting. I was reading a recent op-ed of yours, but also some of the research you've done. This really stood out. So you've got the Hogue Commission that says disinformation is the single biggest threat to our democracy. That's worth pausing on.Taylor Owen03:55-04:31Yeah, exactly. Like the commission that spent a year at the request of all political parties in parliament, at the urging of the opposition party, so it spent a year looking at a wide range of threats to our democratic systems that everybody was concerned about originating in foreign countries. And the conclusion of that was that the single biggest threat to our democracy is the way information flows through our society and how we're not governing it. Like that is a remarkable statement and it kind of came and went. And I don't know why we moved off from that so fast.Nate Erskine-Smith04:31-05:17Well, and there's a lot to pull apart there because you've got purposeful, intentional, bad actors, foreign influence operations. But you also have a really core challenge of just the reliability and credibility of the information ecosystem. So you have Facebook, Instagram through Meta block news in Canada. And your research, this was the stat that stood out. Don't want to put you in and say like, what do we do? Okay. So there's, you say 11 million views of news have been lost as a consequence of that blocking. Okay. That's one piece of information people should know. Yeah. But at the same time.Taylor Owen05:17-05:17A day. Yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith05:18-05:18So right.Taylor Owen05:18-05:2711 million views a day. And we should sometimes we go through these things really fast. It's huge. Again, Facebook decides to block news. 40 million people in Canada. Yeah.Taylor05:27-05:29So 11 million times a Canadian.Taylor Owen05:29-05:45And what that means is 11 million times a Canadian would open one of their news feeds and see Canadian journalism is taken out of the ecosystem. And it was replaced by something. People aren't using these tools less. So that journalism was replaced by something else.Taylor05:45-05:45Okay.Taylor Owen05:45-05:46So that's just it.Nate Erskine-Smith05:46-06:04So on the one side, we've got 11 million views a day lost. Yeah. And on the other side, Canadians, the majority of Canadians get their news from social media. But when the Canadians who get their news from social media are asked where they get it from, they still say Instagram and Facebook. But there's no news there. Right.Taylor Owen06:04-06:04They say they get.Nate Erskine-Smith06:04-06:05It doesn't make any sense.Taylor Owen06:06-06:23It doesn't and it does. It's terrible. They ask Canadians, like, where do you get people who use social media to get their news? Where do they get their news? and they still say social media, even though it's not there. Journalism isn't there. Journalism isn't there. And I think one of the explanations— Traditional journalism. There is—Taylor06:23-06:23There is—Taylor Owen06:23-06:47Well, this is what I was going to get at, right? Like, there is—one, I think, conclusion is that people don't equate journalism with news about the world. There's not a one-to-one relationship there. Like, journalism is one provider of news, but so are influencers, so are podcasts, people listening to this. Like this would be labeled probably news in people's.Nate Erskine-Smith06:47-06:48Can't trust the thing we say.Taylor Owen06:48-07:05Right. And like, and neither of us are journalists, right? But we are providing information about the world. And if it shows up in people's feeds, as I'm sure it will, like that probably gets labeled in people's minds as news, right? As opposed to pure entertainment, as entertaining as you are.Nate Erskine-Smith07:05-07:06It's public affairs content.Taylor Owen07:06-07:39Exactly. So that's one thing that's happening. The other is that there's a generation of creators that are stepping into this ecosystem to both fill that void and that can use these tools much more effectively. So in the last election, we found that of all the information consumed about the election, 50% of it was created by creators. 50% of the engagement on the election was from creators. Guess what it was for journalists, for journalism? Like 5%. Well, you're more pessimistic though. I shouldn't have led with the question. 20%.Taylor07:39-07:39Okay.Taylor Owen07:39-07:56So all of journalism combined in the entire country, 20 percent of engagement, influencers, 50 percent in the last election. So like we've shifted, at least on social, the actors and people and institutions that are fostering our public.Nate Erskine-Smith07:56-08:09Is there a middle ground here where you take some people that play an influencer type role but also would consider themselves citizen journalists in a way? How do you – It's a super interesting question, right?Taylor Owen08:09-08:31Like who – when are these people doing journalism? When are they doing acts of journalism? Like someone can be – do journalism and 90% of the time do something else, right? And then like maybe they reveal something or they tell an interesting story that resonates with people or they interview somebody and it's revelatory and it's a journalistic act, right?Taylor08:31-08:34Like this is kind of a journalistic act we're playing here.Taylor Owen08:35-08:49So I don't think – I think these lines are gray. but I mean there's some other underlying things here which like it matters if I think if journalistic institutions go away entirely right like that's probably not a good thing yeah I mean that's whyNate Erskine-Smith08:49-09:30I say it's terrifying is there's a there's a lot of good in the in the digital space that is trying to be there's creative destruction there's a lot of work to provide people a direct sense of news that isn't that filter that people may mistrust in traditional media. Having said that, so many resources and there's so much history to these institutions and there's a real ethics to journalism and journalists take their craft seriously in terms of the pursuit of truth. Absolutely. And losing that access, losing the accessibility to that is devastating for democracy. I think so.Taylor Owen09:30-09:49And I think the bigger frame of that for me is a democracy needs signals of – we need – as citizens in a democracy, we need signals of reliability. Like we need to know broadly, and we're not always going to agree on it, but like what kind of information we can trust and how we evaluate whether we trust it.Nate Erskine-Smith09:49-10:13And that's what – that is really going away. Pause for a sec. So you could imagine signals of reliability is a good phrase. what does it mean for a legislator when it comes to putting a rule in place? Because you could imagine, you could have a Blade Runner kind of rule that says you've got to distinguish between something that is human generatedTaylor10:13-10:14and something that is machine generated.Nate Erskine-Smith10:15-10:26That seems straightforward enough. It's a lot harder if you're trying to distinguish between Taylor, what you're saying is credible, and Nate, what you're saying is not credible,Taylor10:27-10:27which is probably true.Nate Erskine-Smith10:28-10:33But how do you have a signal of reliability in a different kind of content?Taylor Owen10:34-13:12I mean, we're getting into like a journalistic journalism policy here to a certain degree, right? And it's a wicked problem because the primary role of journalism is to hold you personally to account. And you setting rules for what they can and can't do and how they can and can't behave touches on some real like third rails here, right? It's fraught. However, I don't think it should ever be about policy determining what can and can't be said or what is and isn't journalism. The real problem is the distribution mechanism and the incentives within it. So a great example and a horrible example happened last week, right? So Charlie Kirk gets assassinated. I don't know if you opened a feed in the few days after that, but it was a horrendous place, right? Social media was an awful, awful, awful place because what you saw in that feed was the clearest demonstration I've ever seen in a decade of looking at this of how those algorithmic feeds have become radicalized. Like all you saw on every platform was the worst possible representations of every view. Right. Right. It was truly shocking and horrendous. Like people defending the murder and people calling for the murder of leftists and like on both sides. Right. people blaming Israel, people, whatever. Right. And that isn't a function of like- Aaron Charlie Kirk to Jesus. Sure. Like- It was bonkers all the way around. Totally bonkers, right? And that is a function of how those ecosystems are designed and the incentives within them. It's not a function of like there was journalism being produced about that. Like New York Times, citizens were doing good content about what was happening. It was like a moment of uncertainty and journalism was doing or playing a role, but it wasn't And so I think with all of these questions, including the online harms ones, and I think how we step into an AI governance conversation, the focus always has to be on those systems. I'm like, what is who and what and what are the incentives and the technical decisions being made that determine what we experience when we open these products? These are commercial products that we're choosing to consume. And when we open them, a whole host of business and design and technical decisions and human decisions shape the effect it has on us as people, the effect it has on our democracy, the vulnerabilities that exist in our democracy, the way foreign actors or hostile actors can take advantage of them, right? Like all of that stuff we've been talking about, the role reliability of information plays, like these algorithms could be tweaked for reliable versus unreliable content, right? Over time.Taylor13:12-13:15That's not a – instead of reactionary –Taylor Owen13:15-13:42Or like what's most – it gets most engagement or what makes you feel the most angry, which is largely what's driving X, for example, right now, right? You can torque all those things. Now, I don't think we want government telling companies how they have to torque it. But we can slightly tweak the incentives to get better content, more reliable content, less polarizing content, less hateful content, less harmful content, right? Those dials can be incentivized to be turned. And that's where the policy space should play, I think.Nate Erskine-Smith13:43-14:12And your focus on systems and assessing risks with systems. I think that's the right place to play. I mean, we've seen legislative efforts. You've got the three pieces in Canada. You've got online harms. You've got the privacy and very kind of vague initial foray into AI regs, which we can get to. And then a cybersecurity piece. And all of those ultimately died on the order paper. Yeah. We also had the journalistic protection policies, right, that the previous government did.Taylor Owen14:12-14:23I mean – Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can debate their merits. Yeah. But there was considerable effort put into backstopping the institutions of journalism by the – Well, they're twofold, right?Nate Erskine-Smith14:23-14:33There's the tax credit piece, sort of financial support. And then there was the Online News Act. Right. Which was trying to pull some dollars out of the platforms to pay for the news as well. Exactly.Taylor14:33-14:35So the sort of supply and demand side thing, right?Nate Erskine-Smith14:35-14:38There's the digital service tax, which is no longer a thing.Taylor Owen14:40-14:52Although it still is a piece of past legislation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It still is a thing. Yeah, yeah. Until you guys decide whether to negate the thing you did last year or not, right? Yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith14:52-14:55I don't take full responsibility for that one.Taylor Owen14:55-14:56No, you shouldn't.Nate Erskine-Smith14:58-16:03But other countries have seen more success. Yeah. And so you've got in the UK, in Australia, the EU really has led the way. 2018, the EU passes GDPR, which is a privacy set of rules, which we are still behind seven years later. But you've got in 2022, 2023, you've got Digital Services Act that passes. You've got Digital Markets Act. And as I understand it, and we've had, you know, we've both been involved in international work on this. And we've heard from folks like Francis Hogan and others about the need for risk-based assessments. And you're well down the rabbit hole on this. But isn't it at a high level? You deploy a technology. You've got to identify material risks. You then have to take reasonable measures to mitigate those risks. That's effectively the duty of care built in. And then ideally, you've got the ability for third parties, either civil society or some public office that has the ability to audit whether you have adequately identified and disclosed material risks and whether you have taken reasonable steps to mitigate.Taylor Owen16:04-16:05That's like how I have it in my head.Nate Erskine-Smith16:05-16:06I mean, that's it.Taylor Owen16:08-16:14Write it down. Fill in the legislation. Well, I mean, that process happened. I know. That's right. I know.Nate Erskine-Smith16:14-16:25Exactly. Which people, I want to get to that because C63 gets us a large part of the way there. I think so. And yet has been sort of like cast aside.Taylor Owen16:25-17:39Exactly. Let's touch on that. But I do think what you described as the online harms piece of this governance agenda. When you look at what the EU has done, they have put in place the various building blocks for what a broad digital governance agenda might look like. Because the reality of this space, which we talked about last time, and it's the thing that's infuriating about digital policy, is that you can't do one thing. There's no – digital economy and our digital lives are so vast and the incentives and the effect they have on society is so broad that there's no one solution. So anyone who tells you fix privacy policy and you'll fix all the digital problems we just talked about are full of it. Anyone who says competition policy, like break up the companies, will solve all of these problems. is wrong, right? Anyone who says online harms policy, which we'll talk about, fixes everything is wrong. You have to do all of them. And Europe has, right? They updated their privacy policy. They've been to build a big online harms agenda. They updated their competition regime. And they're also doing some AI policy too, right? So like you need comprehensive approaches, which is not an easy thing to do, right? It means doing three big things all over.Nate Erskine-Smith17:39-17:41Especially minority parlance, short periods of time, legislatively.Taylor Owen17:41-18:20Different countries have taken different pieces of it. Now, on the online harms piece, which is what the previous government took really seriously, and I think it's worth putting a point on that, right, that when we talked last was the beginning of this process. After we spoke, there was a national expert panel. There were 20 consultations. There were four citizens' assemblies. There was a national commission, right? Like a lot of work went into looking at what every other country had done because this is a really wicked, difficult problem and trying to learn from what Europe, Australia and the UK had all done. And we kind of taking the benefit of being late, right? So they were all ahead of us.Taylor18:21-18:25People you work with on that grant committee. We're all quick and do our own consultations.Taylor Owen18:26-19:40Exactly. And like the model that was developed out of that, I think, was the best model of any of those countries. And it's now seen as internationally, interestingly, as the new sort of milestone that everybody else is building on, right? And what it does is it says if you're going to launch a digital product, right, like a consumer-facing product in Canada, you need to assess risk. And you need to assess risk on these broad categories of harms that we have decided as legislators we care about or you've decided as legislators you cared about, right? Child safety, child sexual abuse material, fomenting violence and extremist content, right? Like things that are like broad categories that we've said are we think are harmful to our democracy. All you have to do as a company is a broad assessment of what could go wrong with your product. If you find something could go wrong, so let's say, for example, let's use a tangible example. Let's say you are a social media platform and you are launching a product that's going to be used by kids and it allows adults to contact kids without parental consent or without kids opting into being a friend. What could go wrong with that?Nate Erskine-Smith19:40-19:40Yeah.Taylor19:40-19:43Like what could go wrong? Yeah, a lot could go wrong.Taylor Owen19:43-20:27And maybe strange men will approach teenage girls. Maybe, right? Like if you do a risk assessment, that is something you might find. You would then be obligated to mitigate that risk and show how you've mitigated it, right? Like you put in a policy in place to show how you're mitigating it. And then you have to share data about how these tools are used so that we can monitor, publics and researchers can monitor whether that mitigation strategy worked. That's it. In that case, that feature was launched by Instagram in Canada without any risk assessment, without any safety evaluation. And we know there was like a widespread problem of teenage girls being harassed by strange older men.Taylor20:28-20:29Incredibly creepy.Taylor Owen20:29-20:37A very easy, but not like a super illegal thing, not something that would be caught by the criminal code, but a harm we can all admit is a problem.Taylor20:37-20:41And this kind of mechanism would have just filtered out.Taylor Owen20:41-20:51Default settings, right? And doing thinking a bit before you launch a product in a country about what kind of broad risks might emerge when it's launched and being held accountable to do it for doing that.Nate Erskine-Smith20:52-21:05Yeah, I quite like the we I mean, maybe you've got a better read of this, but in the UK, California has pursued this. I was looking at recently, Elizabeth Denham is now the Jersey Information Commissioner or something like that.Taylor Owen21:05-21:06I know it's just yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith21:07-21:57I don't random. I don't know. But she is a Canadian, for those who don't know Elizabeth Denham. And she was the information commissioner in the UK. And she oversaw the implementation of the first age-appropriate design code. That always struck me as an incredibly useful approach. In that even outside of social media platforms, even outside of AI, take a product like Roblox, where tons of kids use it. And just forcing companies to ensure that the default settings are prioritizing child safety so that you don't put the onus on parents and kids to figure out each of these different games and platforms. In a previous world of consumer protection, offline, it would have been de facto. Of course we've prioritized consumer safety first and foremost. But in the online world, it's like an afterthought.Taylor Owen21:58-24:25Well, when you say consumer safety, it's worth like referring back to what we mean. Like a duty of care can seem like an obscure concept. But your lawyer is a real thing, right? Like you walk into a store. I walk into your office. I have an expectation that the bookshelves aren't going to fall off the wall and kill me, right? And you have to bolt them into the wall because of that, right? Like that is a duty of care that you have for me when I walk into your public space or private space. Like that's all we're talking about here. And the age-appropriate design code, yes, like sort of developed, implemented by a Canadian in the UK. And what it says, it also was embedded in the Online Harms Act, right? If we'd passed that last year, we would be implementing an age-appropriate design code as we speak, right? What that would say is any product that is likely to be used by a kid needs to do a set of additional things, not just these risk assessments, right? But we think like kids don't have the same rights as adults. We have different duties to protect kids as adults, right? So maybe they should do an extra set of things for their digital products. And it includes things like no behavioral targeting, no advertising, no data collection, no sexual adult content, right? Like kind of things that like – Seem obvious. And if you're now a child in the UK and you open – you go on a digital product, you are safer because you have an age-appropriate design code governing your experience online. Canadian kids don't have that because that bill didn't pass, right? So like there's consequences to this stuff. and I get really frustrated now when I see the conversation sort of pivoting to AI for example right like all we're supposed to care about is AI adoption and all the amazing things AI is going to do to transform our world which are probably real right like not discounting its power and just move on from all of these both problems and solutions that have been developed to a set of challenges that both still exist on social platforms like they haven't gone away people are still using these tools and the harms still exist and probably are applicable to this next set of technologies as well. So this moving on from what we've learned and the work that's been done is just to the people working in this space and like the wide stakeholders in this country who care about this stuff and working on it. It just, it feels like you say deja vu at the beginning and it is deja vu, but it's kind of worse, right? Cause it's like deja vu and then ignoring theTaylor24:25-24:29five years of work. Yeah, deja vu if we were doing it again. Right. We're not even, we're not evenTaylor Owen24:29-24:41Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully I actually am not, I'm actually optimistic, I would say that we will, because I actually think of if for a few reasons, like one, citizens want it, right? Like.Nate Erskine-Smith24:41-24:57Yeah, I was surprised on the, so you mentioned there that the rules that we design, the risk assessment framework really applied to social media could equally be applied to deliver AI safety and it could be applied to new technology in a useful way.Taylor Owen24:58-24:58Some elements of it. Exactly.Nate Erskine-Smith24:58-25:25I think AI safety is a broad bucket of things. So let's get to that a little bit because I want to pull the pieces together. So I had a constituent come in the office and he is really like super mad. He's super mad. Why is he mad? Does that happen very often? Do people be mad when they walk into this office? Not as often as you think, to be honest. Not as often as you think. And he's mad because he believes Mark Carney ripped him off.Taylor Owen25:25-25:25Okay.Nate Erskine-Smith25:25-26:36Okay. Yep. He believes Mark Carney ripped him off, not with broken promise in politics, not because he said one thing and is delivering something else, nothing to do with politics. He saw a video online, Mark Carney told him to invest money. He invested money and he's out the 200 bucks or whatever it was. And I was like, how could you possibly have lost money in this way? This is like, this was obviously a scam. Like what, how could you have been deceived? But then I go and I watched the video And it is, okay, I'm not gonna send the 200 bucks and I've grown up with the internet, but I can see how- Absolutely. In the same way, phone scams and Nigerian princes and all of that have their own success rate. I mean, this was a very believable video that was obviously AI generated. So we are going to see rampant fraud. If we aren't already, we are going to see many challenges with respect to AI safety. What over and above the risk assessment piece, what do we do to address these challenges?Taylor Owen26:37-27:04So that is a huge problem, right? Like the AI fraud, AI video fraud is a huge challenge. In the election, when we were monitoring the last election, by far the biggest problem or vulnerability of the election was a AI generated video campaign. that every day would take videos of Polyevs and Carney's speeches from the day before and generate, like morph them into conversations about investment strategies.Taylor27:05-27:07And it was driving people to a crypto scam.Taylor Owen27:08-27:11But it was torquing the political discourse.Taylor27:11-27:11That's what it must have been.Taylor Owen27:12-27:33I mean, there's other cases of this, but that's probably, and it was running rampant on particularly meta platforms. They were flagged. They did nothing about it. There were thousands of these videos circulating throughout the entire election, right? And it's not like the end of the world, right? Like nobody – but it torqued our political debate. It ripped off some people. And these kinds of scams are –Taylor27:33-27:38It's clearly illegal. It's clearly illegal. It probably breaks his election law too, misrepresenting a political figure, right?Taylor Owen27:38-27:54So I think there's probably an Elections Canada response to this that's needed. And it's fraud. And it's fraud, absolutely. So what do you do about that, right? And the head of the Canadian Banking Association said there's like billions of dollars in AI-based fraud in the Canadian economy right now. Right? So it's a big problem.Taylor27:54-27:55Yeah.Taylor Owen27:55-28:46I actually think there's like a very tangible policy solution. You put these consumer-facing AI products into the Online Harms Act framework, right? And then you add fraud and AI scams as a category of harm. And all of a sudden, if you're meta and you are operating in Canada during an election, you'd have to do a risk assessment on like AI fraud potential of your product. Responsibility for your platform. And then it starts to circulate. We would see it. They'd be called out on it. They'd have to take it down. And like that's that, right? Like so that we have mechanisms for dealing with this. But it does mean evolving what we worked on over the past five years, these like only harms risk assessment models and bringing in some of the consumer facing AI, both products and related harms into the framework.Nate Erskine-Smith28:47-30:18To put it a different way, I mean, so this is years ago now that we had this, you know, grand committee in the UK holding Facebook and others accountable. This really was creating the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And the platforms at the time were really holding firm to this idea of Section 230 and avoiding host liability and saying, oh, we couldn't possibly be responsible for everything on our platform. And there was one problem with that argument, which is they completely acknowledged the need for them to take action when it came to child pornography. And so they said, yeah, well, you know, no liability for us. But of course, there can be liability on this one specific piece of content and we'll take action on this one specific piece of content. And it always struck me from there on out. I mean, there's no real intellectual consistency here. It's more just what should be in that category of things that they should take responsibility for. And obviously harmful content like that should be – that's an obvious first step but obvious for everyone. But there are other categories. Fraud is another one. When they're making so much money, when they are investing so much money in AI, when they're ignoring privacy protections and everything else throughout the years, I mean, we can't leave it up to them. And setting a clear set of rules to say this is what you're responsible for and expanding that responsibility seems to make a good amount of sense.Taylor Owen30:18-30:28It does, although I think those responsibilities need to be different for different kinds of harms. Because there are different speech implications and apocratic implications of sort of absolute solutions to different kinds of content.Taylor30:28-30:30So like child pornography is a great example.Taylor Owen30:30-31:44In the Online Harms Bill Act, for almost every type of content, it was that risk assessment model. But there was a carve out for child sexual abuse material. So including child pornography. And for intimate images and videos shared without consent. It said the platforms actually have a different obligation, and that's to take it down within 24 hours. And the reason you can do it with those two kinds of content is because if we, one, the AI is actually pretty good at spotting it. It might surprise you, but there's a lot of naked images on the internet that we can train AI with. So we're actually pretty good at using AI to pull this stuff down. But the bigger one is that we are, I think, as a society, it's okay to be wrong in the gray area of that speech, right? Like if something is like debatable, whether it's child pornography, I'm actually okay with us suppressing the speech of the person who sits in that gray area. Whereas for something like hate speech, it's a really different story, right? Like we do not want to suppress and over index for that gray area on hate speech because that's going to capture a lot of reasonable debate that we probably want.Nate Erskine-Smith31:44-31:55Yeah, I think soliciting investment via fraud probably falls more in line with the child pornography category where it's, you know, very obviously illegal.Taylor Owen31:55-32:02And that mechanism is like a takedown mechanism, right? Like if we see fraud, if we know it's fraud, then you take it down, right? Some of these other things we have to go with.Nate Erskine-Smith32:02-32:24I mean, my last question really is you pull the threads together. You've got these different pieces that were introduced in the past. And you've got a government that lots of similar folks around the table, but a new government and a new prime minister certainly with a vision for getting the most out of AI when it comes to our economy.Taylor32:24-32:25Absolutely.Nate Erskine-Smith32:25-33:04You have, for the first time in this country, an AI minister, a junior minister to industry, but still a specific title portfolio and with his own deputy minister and really wants to be seized with this. And in a way, I think that from every conversation I've had with him that wants to maximize productivity in this country using AI, but is also cognizant of the risks and wants to address AI safety. So where from here? You know, you've talked in the past about sort of a grander sort of tech accountability and sovereignty act. Do we do piecemeal, you know, a privacy bill here and an AI safety bill and an online harms bill and we have disparate pieces? What's the answer here?Taylor Owen33:05-34:14I mean, I don't have the exact answer. But I think there's some like, there's some lessons from the past that we can, this government could take. And one is piecemeal bills that aren't centrally coordinated or have no sort of connectivity between them end up with piecemeal solutions that are imperfect and like would benefit from some cohesiveness between them, right? So when the previous government released ADA, the AI Act, it was like really intention in some real ways with the online harms approach. So two different departments issuing two similar bills on two separate technologies, not really talking to each other as far as I can tell from the outside, right? So like we need a coordinating, coordinated, comprehensive effort to digital governance. Like that's point one and we've never had it in this country. And when I saw the announcement of an AI minister, my mind went first to that he or that office could be that role. Like you could – because AI is – it's cross-cutting, right? Like every department in our federal government touches AI in one way or another. And the governance of AI and the adoption on the other side of AI by society is going to affect every department and every bill we need.Nate Erskine-Smith34:14-34:35So if Evan pulled in the privacy pieces that would help us catch up to GDPR. Which it sounds like they will, right? Some version of C27 will probably come back. If he pulls in the online harms pieces that aren't related to the criminal code and drops those provisions, says, you know, Sean Frazier, you can deal with this if you like. But these are the pieces I'm holding on to.Taylor Owen34:35-34:37With a frame of consumer safety, right?Nate Erskine-Smith34:37-34:37Exactly.Taylor Owen34:38-34:39If he wants...Nate Erskine-Smith34:39-34:54Which is connected to privacy as well, right? Like these are all... So then you have thematically a bill that makes sense. And then you can pull in as well the AI safety piece. And then it becomes a consumer protection bill when it comes to living our lives online. Yeah.Taylor Owen34:54-36:06And I think there's an argument whether that should be one bill or whether it's multiple ones. I actually don't think it... I think there's cases for both, right? There's concern about big omnibus bills that do too many things and too many committees reviewing them and whatever. that's sort of a machinery of government question right but but the principle that these should be tied together in a narrative that the government is explicit about making and communicating to publics right that if if you we know that 85 percent of canadians want ai to be regulated what do they mean what they mean is at the same time as they're being told by our government by companies that they should be using and embracing this powerful technology in their lives they're also seeing some risks. They're seeing risks to their kids. They're being told their jobs might disappear and might take their... Why should I use this thing? When I'm seeing some harms, I don't see you guys doing anything about these harms. And I'm seeing some potential real downside for me personally and my family. So even in the adoption frame, I think thinking about data privacy, safety, consumer safety, I think to me, that's the real frame here. It's like citizen safety, consumer safety using these products. Yeah, politically, I just, I mean, that is what it is. It makes sense to me.Nate Erskine-Smith36:06-36:25Right, I agree. And really lean into child safety at the same time. Because like I've got a nine-year-old and a five-year-old. They are growing up with the internet. And I do not want to have to police every single platform that they use. I do not want to have to log in and go, these are the default settings on the parental controls.Taylor36:25-36:28I want to turn to government and go, do your damn job.Taylor Owen36:28-36:48Or just like make them slightly safer. I know these are going to be imperfect. I have a 12-year-old. He spends a lot of time on YouTube. I know that's going to always be a place with sort of content that I would prefer he doesn't see. But I would just like some basic safety standards on that thing. So he's not seeing the worst of the worst.Nate Erskine-Smith36:48-36:58And we should expect that. Certainly at YouTube with its promotion engine, the recommendation function is not actively promoting terrible content to your 12 year old.Taylor Owen36:59-37:31Yeah. That's like de minimis. Can we just torque this a little bit, right? So like maybe he's not seeing content about horrible content about Charlie Kirk when he's a 12 year old on YouTube, right? Like, can we just do something? And I think that's a reasonable expectation as a citizen. But it requires governance. That will not – and that's – it's worth putting a real emphasis on that is one thing we've learned in this moment of repeated deja vus going back 20 years really since our experience with social media for sure through to now is that these companies don't self-govern.Taylor37:31-37:31Right.Taylor Owen37:32-37:39Like we just – we know that indisputably. So to think that AI is going to be different is delusional. No, it'll be pseudo-profit, not the public interest.Taylor37:39-37:44Of course. Because that's what we are. These are the largest companies in the world. Yeah, exactly. And AI companies are even bigger than the last generation, right?Taylor Owen37:44-38:00We're creating something new with the scale of these companies. And to think that their commercial incentives and their broader long-term goals of around AI are not going to override these safety concerns is just naive in the nth degree.Nate Erskine-Smith38:00-38:38But I think you make the right point, and it's useful to close on this, that these goals of realizing the productivity possibilities and potentials of AI alongside AI safety, these are not mutually exclusive or oppositional goals. that it's you create a sandbox to play in and companies will be more successful. And if you have certainty in regulations, companies will be more successful. And if people feel safe using these tools and having certainly, you know, if I feel safe with my kids learning these tools growing up in their classrooms and everything else, you're going to adoption rates will soar. Absolutely. And then we'll benefit.Taylor Owen38:38-38:43They work in tandem, right? And I think you can't have one without the other fundamentally.Nate Erskine-Smith38:45-38:49Well, I hope I don't invite you back five years from now when we have the same conversation.Taylor Owen38:49-38:58Well, I hope you invite me back in five years, but I hope it's like thinking back on all the legislative successes of the previous five years. I mean, that'll be the moment.Taylor38:58-38:59Sounds good. Thanks, David. Thanks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Ahead of MPs returning to the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre joins The House for a sit-down interview in studio to discuss the federal government's major projects list, his views on climate change and his worries about his family's security in a time of growing political violence.Then, Catherine Cullen talks to Dan Myerson, CEO of the Foran copper mine in Saskatchewan that made the top tier of Carney's projects list, and Martin Imbleau, the CEO of Alto, the high-speed rail project connecting Toronto to Quebec City that still has work to do before moving up to the A-list.Plus, Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star and Stuart Thomson of the National Post evaluate whether Carney can walk the political tightrope and keep provinces and territories happy. Finally, former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna discusses her new memoir, Run Like A Girl, and explains how she coped with sexist attacks and the increasingly toxic nature of political life in Canada.This episode features the voices of:Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of CanadaDan Myerson, CEO of Foran MiningMartin Imbleau, CEO of AltoTonda MacCharles, Ottawa bureau chief for the Toronto StarStuart Thomson, parliamentary bureau chief for the National PostCatherine McKenna, former federal environment minister and author of Run Like A Girl

Plus: After scientists created "olo" -- a colour they say no one else can see, artist Stuart Semple created "yolo". And he says it can be yours for a small price.  Also: We remember tireless B.C. drug and addiction advocate Trey Helton. 

Is Canada a climate leader or a fossil-fueled dinosaur? And what will the recent ascension of Mark Carney as Prime Minister mean for the country's climate agenda - both domestically and on the world stage?In the second of our country deep-dives, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac speak with Catherine McKenna, Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, to discuss the mixed history, uncertain present and possible futures of the nation's climate record.As Canada's representative at the COP 21 negotiations in Paris, Catherine set the tone for the decade that has followed, during which time the country has increasingly engaged in international climate leadership. Back home, she also spearheaded an innovative carbon pricing system, which, though not always popular, attempted to shift the nation away from its fossil fuel dependency while delivering an economic net benefit for most Canadians.While former Bank of England and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has become widely known as a climate progressive, his first act in office was to end this carbon tax, leading many to question how his climate ideals will fare in the face of political reality. Catherine reflects on why the tax was scrapped, and the lessons that must be learned if we are to defend climate action.Along with Paul Dickinson, Christiana and Tom consider the challenges facing former Outrage + Optimism guest Carney as he takes the helm of one of the G20's highest emitters, and ask if we're witnessing a wider backlash against corporate net zero commitments.Learn more

Happy St Brigit's weekend! (For links to Brigit content see below). Instead of Brigit we were eager to release an episode we recorded just before Christmas with the brilliant Dr Colin Veach, from the University of Hull, on the English colonisation of Ireland, which may be known to some of you as the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Today's episode mostly focusses on the English perspective of the conquest. Whether it was inevitable, how we should frame the events, English or Anglo-Norman etc. We talk Diarmaid Mac Murchada or in English, Dermot McMurrough and Strongbow, King Henry II and the bad King John, but we'll cover Rory O'Connor and other aspects in more detail in future episodes. We've an extra super short bonus episode which we will release next week on the initial propaganda that was released justifying the English invasion and how historians should approach the sources today. Suggested reading: Colin Veach, From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland , The English Historical Review, 2024;, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210 Brigit links: Niamh on the Bitesize Irish Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vObx_1gg Tiago's article on RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/ Podcast episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna last year: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GYSJHylMlTNuKUSSzLhN1?si=fcdf72608d9142b7 Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation Monday, saying he will leave office as soon as his party chooses a new leader as slumping polls and internal division took their toll. We hear from Catherine McKenna, a former minister in Trudeau's government.Also in the programme: Austria asks far-right leader to commence coalition talks; and the Capitol Hill cop on duty on January 6th 2021.(Picture: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters, announcing he intends to step down as Liberal Party leader. Credit: Reuters)

Catherine McKenna, chair of the UN Zero Emissions working group, and former federal environment minister hears your thoughts. She has just returned from the COP29 international climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Plus: An enormous diamond necklace that may have played a role in the downfall of Marie Antoinette sells for a commensurately enormous price. Also: Médecins Sans Frontières says a recent attack against an ambulance and patients in Haiti raises serious questions about their ability to provide care in the country.

Liberal MPs save Catherine McKenna from summons over Jasper forest management. Records show feds knew of fire risk from dead pine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau improperly divulged classified info & ignored unlawful activities by foreign agents to advantage of Liberals, opposition counsel says on final day of China inquiry: "Party before country." There is no chance of the feds meeting Yves-François Blanchet's ultimatum to pass 2 Bloc Quebecois bills by Tuesday, putting the 44th Parliament on borrowed time with 'plenty of non-confidence votes to Christmas. Guest: Tom Korski. Editor. Blacklock's Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kamala october surprise! Joe biden talking about re-writing the history books correctly! lol Jasper fire and Catherine Mckenna, 81% reduction of co2? If you needed an organ transplant but they could only give it to you from a homeless dude they just killed, i mean maided…is that cool? How about if it got you sick? BC elections being rigged Sign Up for the Full Show Locals (daily video) https://canadapoli2.locals.com/ Spotify https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/canadapoli/subscribe Private Full podcast audio https://canadapoli.com/feed/canadapoliblue/ Buy subscriptions here (daily video and audio podcast): https://canadapoli.com/canadapoli-subscriptions/ Sample Shows Me on Telegram https://t.me/realCanadaPoli Me on Rumble https://rumble.com/user/CanadaPoli Me on Odyssey https://odysee.com/@CanadaPoli:f Me on Bitchute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/l55JBxrgT3Hf/ Podcast RSS https://anchor.fm/s/e57706d8/podcast/rss

Greg Brady spoke with Dane Lloyd, Emergency Preparedness Shadow Minister, Conservative Party of Canada about the Conservatives motion to summon former Liberal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna to the witness stand at the Jasper wildfire investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg Brady spoke with Dane Lloyd, Emergency Preparedness Shadow Minister, Conservative Party of Canada about the Conservatives motion to summon former Liberal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna to the witness stand at the Jasper wildfire investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catherine McKenna, Former Environment Minister; Genevieve Beauchemin, CTV News & Jeff Keele, CTV News; Keir Giles, Chatham House Senior Fellow; The Front Bench with: Sabrina Grover, Melanie Paradis & Gurratan Singh.

The Montreal Gazette's James Mennie joined Aaron to talk about last night's presidential debate and Justin Trudeau's leadership.

Anyone seeking election as a politician can expect to have to argue their case with the electorate, and deal with opposition and criticism. But what happens when that democratic debate turns toxic and politicians face personal abuse, intimidation and threats of violence? With election campaigns being fought in several countries around the world, we bring together politicians in Canada, France and the UK to discuss some of their experiences of public office. Heather Williams, a councillor in the east of England tells presenter Luke Jones how she was threatened with being shot and Catherine McKenna who served in the Canadian government, and her son Matt share the challenges they faced living life under the political spotlight.

Margaret talks to former Canadian Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, about the challenges of climate change, political polarization, and her experience as a woman in politics.Support the Show.

Catherina McKenna (pictured) heaps praise on COP21 during an address to Columbia Climate School - "Catherine McKenna on Her Life, Work and Preserving the World for Future Generations"; "Ugly, treeless, hot: Push to force developers to plant trees in Melbourne's outer suburbs"; "‘Opportunistic' fraud and scams target disasters in a warming world"; "Ready or not, self-driving semi-trucks are coming to America's highways"; "Can We Engineer Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?"; "Energy giant sees hydrogen outshining nuclear in race to replace coal"; "A River in Flux"; "How we are using AI for reliable flood forecasting at a global scale"; "Can Flashy Music Festivals Go Green?"; "Australian music festivals are increasingly affected by climate change. But is the industry doing enough to mitigate its impact?"; "17 people taken to hospital during Ed Sheeran concert at Acrisure Stadium"; "Climate change makes heat waves, storms and droughts worse, climate report confirms"; "Nearly 100 injured as hailstorm pummels Louis Tomlinson concert in Colorado"; "The BBC, Guyana, and Untangling North-South Climate Complexities"; "How we are using AI for reliable flood forecasting at a global scale"; "Flash flooding possible as thunderstorms rumble towards Melbourne from the west"; "Weather tracker: Cyclone Gamane unexpectedly veers into Madagascar"; "How a Blind Oceanographer Studies Temperature-Regulating Currents"; "Too far or not far enough? These are Europe's most and least popular climate policies"; "Major storm to sweep United States with severe weather, snow, flooding"; "U.S. clamps down on oil and gas firms releasing potent greenhouse gas"; "BYD says plug-in electrics will exceed 50 pct of new car sales in China in next 3 months"; "Po Valley: Air pollution is causing serious health risks for more than 16 million Italians"; "2024 Must Be the Year for Exponential Climate Action"; "Kim Beazley urges Tanya Plibersek to reject Woodside LNG plant extension"; "Energy giant wrongly received thousands from welfare payments of former customers under Centrelink scheme"; "Labor's car plan shifts down a gear as voters lukewarm on carbon targets"; "Five climate megaprojects that might just save the world"; "El Niño will cause record-breaking heat across the world this year"; "There are growing fears of an alarming shift in Antarctic sea ice"; "First Wisconsin tornadoes in February: ‘It's an absolute shock' (photos)"; "Water now a major risk for world's supply chains, reports CDP"; "Environmentalists Sue to Block Expansion of New York State's Largest Landfill"; "Volcanoes Can Affect Climate"; "Australia's carbon credits system a failure on global scale, study finds"; "Labor's chance to protect youth over fossil fuels"; "The surprising reasons why Big Oil may not want a second Trump term". --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robert-mclean/message

Was Brigit a true feminist icon? Was she even real? Or merely made up by a man to exploit the veneration of a 'pagan' goddess? All this and more in our special St Brigit's Day episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna (Harvard University) to celebrate the Brigit 1500 commemorations in 2024. Happy St Brigit's Day! Hosted by Dr Niamh Wycherley. Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday). Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com Twitter X: @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & the Irish Research Council. Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/medievalirishhistory/message

In rural North Dakota an old, coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground. $890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that and two similar projects in California and Texas. Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on “carbon capture and storage” technology. Among those critics are Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. She’s now CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions, an advisory firm,  and Chairs the UN’s expert group on net-zero commitments.

In rural North Dakota an old, coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground. $890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that and two similar projects in California and Texas. Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on “carbon capture and storage” technology. Among those critics are Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. She’s now CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions, an advisory firm,  and Chairs the UN’s expert group on net-zero commitments.

In 2021, then-Infrastructure minister Catherine McKenna announced a process to assess all of Canada's existing infrastructure in order to better use $180 billion to fix, modernize and improve it over the next dozen years. After that announcement the government began a consultation process on how to do the assessment. At some point in the process there were roundtable discussions, written submissions, a report summarizing those submissions and discussions and ... everything but an infrastructure assessment.What do we know and what don't we know about the state of Canada's roads and bridges, pipes and public places? Why hasn't the assessment even begun, years later? Why does the saga of the infrastructure assessment seem to explain so much of how our governments can operate, and why is it so darkly funny?GUEST: David Reevely, Ottawa reporter, The Logic We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemailOr @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

On October 31, 2023, Canada 2020 brought together a group of government and business leaders, technology experts, policymakers, and innovators from across the country at our Fall Net-Zero Leadership Summit: A Pre-COP28 Stocktake for Canada. In this featured session of the summit, Catherine McKenna (former Minister of Environment and Climate Change for Canada; Chair of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities) speaks with Braeden Caley (Executive Director, Canada 2020) about the policy ambition it will take to achieve real net-zero progress.This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

It's been described as a signature blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's signature policy. Last month, the Liberals announced a three-year pause to the application of the carbon price on home heating oil to help ease the costs, especially in Atlantic Canada where it's used in about a third of all households. Climate and energy experts decried it as a weakening of Trudeau's policy, former environment minister Catherine McKenna condemned the move, and potential leadership candidate Mark Carney said publicly that he wouldn't have done things that way. Provincial premiers, such as Alberta's Danielle Smith, Ontario's Doug Ford, British Columbia's David Ebby, Manitoba's Wab Kinew, and Saskatchewan's Scott Moe all called for the carbon price to be eliminated from home heating for all their residents. Moe went so far as to pledge to stop collecting and transmitting the levy on natural gas. What was expected by some rural MPs to be a popular announcement, unleashed a huge outcry putting the debate over carbon pricing right back on the front burner. This week on “It's Political” we dig into the carbon pricing debate, with Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, experts Andrew Leach, Dale Beugin and Katya Rhodes, and Liberal MP Kody Blois, whose persistent lobbying led to the policy change. 4:23.077 - Kody Blois 17:15.840 - The Case for Carbon Pricing 39:46.601 - Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault In this episode: Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, Nova Scotia Liberal MP Kody Blois, University of Alberta Professor Andrew Leach, Canadian Climate Institute Executive Vice President Dale Beugin, University of Victoria Assistant Professor in climate policy Katya Rhodes. Hosted by Althia Raj. Some of the clips this week were sourced from CPAC, The Senate, The House of Commons, The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, CBC, Global News, CTV, Pierre Poilievre's Facebook Page, The Conservative Party of Canada, Scott Moe's X/Twitter account. This episode of “It's Political” was produced by Althia Raj and Michal Stein. Kevin Sexton mixed the program. Our theme music is by Isaac Joel.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs says he is seeking legal advice about whether his province can stop collecting the carbon tax, arguing that it's making the affordability crisis worse for Canadians. But former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna says the tax is a necessary tool in the climate change fight, and the focus should be on companies charging high prices.

Renowned psychologist and bestselling author Jordan Peterson lost his court challenge against Ontario's college of psychologists today. The college sought to force Peterson into training on how to conduct himself on social media as a condition of remaining a licensed psychologist. Peterson took the matter to an Ontario court, which ruled today that the condition doesn't actually hinder his right to freedom of expression. Canadian Constitution Foundation lawyer Josh Dehaas joins the Andrew Lawton Show to discuss. Also, Catherine McKenna thinks Conservative politicians need their own mandatory education on climate change. True North's Andrew Lawton weighs in. Plus, is artificial intelligence leading to the end of thought? Christopher Snook tackles that question in an essay for C2C Journal titled “AI, the Destruction of Thought and the End of the Humanities.” He joins the show to explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're looking at the return of mask mandates across several sectors. Is another round of pandemic paranoia settling in? Plus, former environment minister Catherine McKenna compared Conservatives to arsonists for opposing carbon taxes. We'll try to make sense of how opposing taxes sets fires. And finally, Liberal Minister Dominic LeBlanc was asked about reducing immigration to help solve Canada's housing crisis.

Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna has accused the Conservatives and those who oppose carbon taxes of being “arsonists” as wildfires sweep across the Northwest Territories and British Columbia. Current Liberal ministers have criticized the Conservatives for wanting to “making pollution free.” If carbon taxes are the answer to forest fires, why did these fires happen in the first place, True North's Andrew Lawton asks. Also, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz joins the show to talk about how Alberta is pushing back against Justin Trudeau's electricity regulations. Plus, Dr. Matt Strauss is suing Queen's University for forcing him out of his job because of his opposition to lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He joins Andrew to discuss free speech in medicine and academic freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna had harsh words for Conservatives who oppose carbon taxes. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), McKenna called them “arsonists” responsible for the growing number of wildfires across Canada. Plus, no human remains were found in the excavation of a church basement in Pine Creek, Manitoba, which was formerly part of a residential school run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969. And a women's rights advocate is urging Conservatives to protect women's spaces and categories at the upcoming Conservative Party convention. Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Andrew Lawton! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada is a leading producer of oil and gas. It's also one of the few G7 members with a carbon tax. As Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2015, Catherine McKenna was charged with getting Canadians on board with that policy. One of the most important tactics was calling it “a price on pollution.” Carbon taxes are having a moment after the Paris Climate Finance Summit and Cath joins Akshat this week to talk about the political practicalities of passing a carbon tax. She has advice about who to lean on, handling threats, and why focusing on outcomes above all else is the key to climate policy that works.    Akshat will be traveling to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Delhi over the next few weeks. Fancy meeting for a drink? Sign up here.  More Links  Interview of Justin Trudeau Carbon taxes at the Paris Climate Summit Transcript of this conversation with Catherine McKenna The World Bank 2023 Report on the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Dave Sawyer, Gernot Wagner, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, and Abraiya Ruffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's guest on Cleaning Up is Tzeporah Berman. Tzeporah has been leading environmental campaigns in her native Canada and beyond for over thirty years. Today, she is Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and International Program Director at Stand.earth, the environmental organisation that she co-founded.Tzeporah was formerly co-director of Greenpeace's Global Climate and Energy Program, and her success campaigning against fossil development has seen her dubbed “Canada's Queen of Green”. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningupLinks and Related Episodes Watch Episode 45 with Catherine McKenna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEP1SGL-DcA Watch Tzeporah's TED Talk on the “bad math” of the fossil-fuel industry: https://www.ted.com/talks/tzeporah_berman_the_bad_math_of_the_fossil_fuel_industry Find out more about Stand.earth here: https://stand.earth/ Learn about the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative: https://fossilfueltreaty.org/ Explore the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels: https://fossilfuelregistry.org/Guest Bio Tzeporah Berman is an environmental campaigner and policy advisor. She is International Program Director at Stand.earth, the environmental organization that she co-founded (as ForestEthics), and Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. At Stand.earth she works to help develop strategies for the Amazon, shipping, fashion, pipeline, LNG and old growth forests campaigns. As co-director of Greenpeace's Global Climate and Energy program, she led the creation of the Arctic campaign and a successful “Unfriend Coal” campaign to get Facebook, Apple, and others to switch from coal to renewable energy for their data centres. Tzeporah was one of the creators and lead negotiators of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the Canadian Boreal Forest Initiative. Her work has contributed to the protection of over 40 million hectares of old growth forests. In 2013 Tzeporah was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of British Columbia, and she was the 2019 recipient of the Climate Breakthrough Project Award. Tzeporah is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada. In 2021, she was arrested for blockading the logging of thousand-year-old trees in Fairy Creek, Vancouver Island.

Dive into the latest episode of our podcast as Chris and Scotty make a splash with special guest, the Hon. Catherine McKenna! From champion swimmer to Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate, she shares her insights on Canada's carbon pricing, Indigenous engagement, and how we can all work together to tackle climate change. For a look at the report mentioned in the episode go to: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/high-level_expert_group_n7b.pdf

What is Parliament Hill like as a workplace? Is it respectful? Is it safe? If we want our democracy to thrive, it should be. Former MPs tell us how they were treated on the job, both inside and beyond the House of Commons. How did they navigate the extreme workloads and all the pressure? And when you're in such a huge job, where can you turn for support?This episode features:Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, (2011-2019) - Interviews for Humans of the House were conducted in the summer of 2022 and the show was launched in March 2023. In August 2023 Romeo Saganash was charged with sexual assault. We will update when the court case is complete.Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor-Tecumseh, (2015-2019)Hon. Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, (2015-2021)Hon. Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, (2008-2019)Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, (2011-2018)Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, (2015-2019)Resources for this episode:View our episode page at https://www.samaracentre.ca/articles/hoth-episode-3/ On the challenges of balancing MP life with personal life: Why Divorce Rates are so High for MP'sMP spouses often lead even lonelier lifeParliament family-friendly? HardlyOn resting and productivity: How Resting More Can Boost Your Productivity.More data from SAMbot, tracking online toxicity during Canadian elections.More info on the Speaker of the House and other roles in the House of Commons. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @TheSamaraCentre and on Facebook at the Samara Centre for Democracy for updates. Join the conversation using #HumansOfTheHouse.This podcast is part of the Samara Centre for Democracy's MP Exit Interview Project. This episode features audio clips from CTV News, CBC and CPACThis series is produced by Media Girlfriends for the Samara Centre for Democracy.Visit our website to learn more about how the Samara Centre for Democracy is working to secure a resilient democracy, and consider supporting our work with a donation. Humans of the House is funded by the Government of Canada and Rosamond Ivey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So, you won an election and are officially a Member of Parliament. Now what? This episode, former MPs take us inside their very first days on Parliament Hill. What does an MP do in an average week? Where do they go? And as they settle into their new jobs, are they being set up to serve Canadians well? THIS EPISODE FEATURES: Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, (2015-2019); Independent, Whitby, (2019)Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, (2011-2018)Hon. Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, (2015-2021)Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, (2015-2019Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina-Fort York, (2014-2021)Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, (2015-2019)James Cumming, Conservative, (2019-2021)Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, (2011-2019) - Interviews for Humans of the House were conducted in the summer of 2022 and the show was launched in March 2023. In August 2023 Romeo Saganash was charged with sexual assault. We will update when the court case is complete.RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE: View our episode page at https://www.samaracentre.ca/articles/hoth-episode-2/ Learn more about how new Members find their feet with this fact sheet from the 44th Parliament.Learn more about onboarding and retention: The True Cost of a Bad Hire.On motions and the legislative process: The process of debate The legislative process in Parliament.More on a typical sitting day in the House of Commons.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @TheSamaraCentre and on Facebook at the Samara Centre for Democracy for updates. Join the conversation using #HumansOfTheHouse.This podcast is part of the Samara Centre for Democracy's MP Exit Interview Project. This episode features audio clips from Global News and The Canadian Press. This series is produced by Media Girlfriends for the Samara Centre for Democracy.Visit our website to learn more about how the Samara Centre for Democracy is working to secure a resilient democracy, and consider supporting our work with a donation. Humans of the House is funded by the Government of Canada and Rosamond Ivey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nate is joined on this episode by Catherine Mckenna, former minister of environment and climate and former minister of infrastructure and communities. She is currently the Chair of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities.The discussion covers a range of topics at federal and provincial levels but primarily focuses on a report from her UN working group, which calls out greenwashing and recommends radical transparency and accountability to make net zero pledges a reality. 

With UN negotiations underway in Egypt, the call continues to phase out fossil fuels. Former environment minister Catherine McKenna gives us a reality check on net zero pledges. A listener shares her memories of a beloved mountain park. And, one year after an atmospheric river hit B.C., we check in on recovery.

Catherine McKenna, Canada's former minister of the environment and climate change, was at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. She says some businesses are working hard to meet their net-zero pledges — but for those that aren't, they have to start backing up their talk.

Brian Conway, directeur médical du Centre des maladies infectieuses de Vancouver, se penche sur la crise des morts par surdose en Colombie-Britannique; Catherine McKenna, présidente d'un groupe d'experts de l'Organisation des Nations unies contre les changements climatiques, parle des recommandations de son groupe, qui vise à fixer un objectif de zéro émission nette pour les entreprises; et Vincent Boucher, chercheur en résidence de l'Observatoire sur les États-Unis de la Chaire Raoul-Dandurand en études stratégiques et diplomatiques de l'Université du Québec à Montréal, s'intéresse à ce qu'il faut surveiller lors des élections de mi-mandat aux États-Unis.

Welcome to this week's episode - It's a packed agenda. Our hosts cover everything from nature breakdown in the UK, the threat of nuclear war in Europe, the downfall of a World Bank President and plenty in-between. We also hear from the incredible Helen Clarkson and Catherine McKenna on everything to do with greenwashing, carbon tax and the power of straight-talking on climate. For those of you working in the corporate world and grappling with climate action, this is an episode you do not want to miss. Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group which convenies Climate Week NYC, shares a fascinating insight at the disconnect happening within companies on the road to net zero, who are now having to turn their commitments into real action. And that brings us to the fascinating conversation on greenwashing with Catherine McKenna, Chair of something with an extraordinarily long and very difficult to say without reading your notes name: the UN's High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. We talk about how, while we're all outraged - rightly - by greenwashing, we still need to lift up the folks who are doing the real work and not lump everyone in the same group. And there's more: on the balance between integrity and momentum, supply chain efficiencies, understanding risk, a price on carbon, disclosure and what blockchain has to do with all of that. We wrap up with a gorgeous song from Finnegan Tui. Your ears will thank you for staying on to listen.   Notes and Resources    Thank you to our guests this week:    Helen Clarkson | Chief Executive Office at the Climate Group  Twitter   Climate Group Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram Catch all of last week's Climate Week NYC On Demand   Catherine McKenna | Chair of H-LEG - the UN's High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. Twitter - Thank you to our musical guest this week, Finnegan Tui! Finnegan Tui Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Website Patreon | Bandcamp Watch the ‘ZEPHYR' Audio-Visual Journey on YouTube - Congratulations to Global Optimism's very own Freya Newman on her Masters Resarch being published in Nature Communications! - For more on WBG President David Malpass's controversial remarks, start here. -  @OutrageOptimism is where we are online! Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

No more arrivecan, no more masks no more teachers dirty looks! Catherine Mckenna calls for a crack down on free speech Italy's new PM is calling out the woknenss GG and her 100,000 catering bill Poilievre vs Diaglon Me on Telegram https://t.me/realCanadaPoli Me on Rumble https://rumble.com/user/CanadaPoli Me on Odyssey https://odysee.com/@CanadaPoli:f Me on Bitchute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/l55JBxrgT3Hf/ Me on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/canadapoli Headlines and ... Read More The post 1090 Scrapping ArriveCan, Finally! Italy, Inflation and More! appeared first on CanadaPoli.

Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, discusses the catalytic global environment challenge to repair and regenerate the planet. Dr. Andrew Forrest, Executive Chairman at Fortescue Metals, explains the company's plan spend $6.2 billion over the next decade to decarbonize its iron ore operations. Catherine McKenna, Chair of the UN High-Level Expert Group and former Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada, talks about industries and governments achieving net-zero emissions. The Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L-P, the parent company of Bloomberg Radio.Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Net-zero commitments are a critical first step in the fight against climate change. But to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet, we actually have to ensure countries and corporations live up to those promises. In this episode, we chat with Catherine McKenna, head of the UN Task Force against greenwashing, about regulations and accountability when it comes to net-zero targets, as well as how  incentives might help. We need to quickly scale climate solutions; which means tackling bureaucratic hurdles. Nothing is off limits. Featured in this episode:Catherine McKenna, Canada's former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Catherine's current role (as founder and principal) focuses on scaling Climate and Nature Solutions. She's also the Chair of the UN Secretary General's new High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities, and if that wasn't enough — Catherine is an avid open water swimmer and mother of three. She shares her perspective on what it takes to make progress on the climate file.Further Reading: Corporate net-zero pledges have a long way to goJust 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissionsClimate Emergency, Calling Intergovernmental Panel's Report ‘a File of Shame'Catherine McKenna to chair UN panel on climate change progressFour key climate change indicators break records in 2021 The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. MaRS helps entrepreneurs looking to scale solutions in climate tech, health and software. We offer targeted support through our Capital and Growth Acceleration programs. To learn more visit us at marsdd.com

“Catherine McKenna's Canadian Exceptionalism is Exceptionally Ignorant”A MOment on This is VANCOLOUR Sundays at 7pm on CHEK News

Andrew Chapados and Justin Trudeau's trip to Toronto; Sheila Gunn Reid on Catherine McKenna's chauffeuring expenses.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world is headed for catastrophe if we do not drastically cut emissions. We talk to former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna about how to get Canada on track.

Ezra Levant hosts as Catherine McKenna and CTV join Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in being caught promoting Ukrainian neo-Nazis linked to the infamous Azov Battalion.

In 2019, while the US was distracted, Canada implemented a big ol' national carbon tax -- and in the subsequent election, voters overwhelmingly affirmed it. I talk with two of the key players about how it got passed & what it means. Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe

In the wake of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, what does the fight for climate justice look like? In the first of our four-part post-COP26 series, former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, and climate scientist and author Katharine Hayhoe talk about the outcomes of COP26, the future of climate advocacy, and Hayhoe's new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.

CBC's Laura Lynch and U.K. climate envoy John Murton discuss pledges at COP26. Plus — the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador discusses the cyber attack on his province's healthcare system; the head of the Canadian Centre of Cyber Security on what can be done to prevent future attacks; and former environment minister Catherine McKenna and youth climate activist Meredith Adler talk about women leaders in the climate fight.

Video footage from the 1990s shows Catherine McKenna bribing her way into a cockfight and chowing down on dog meat in Indonesia. Is criticizing this fair game or does it simply fuel cancel culture? True North's Andrew Lawton discusses. Also, another climate apocalypse deadline has come and gone and we're still here, plus a look at the New York Times' nothingburger story on Donald Trump's tax returns. Ontario member of provincial parliament Randy Hiller joins the show to talk about the courage deficit among Canadian politicians as another lockdown looms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ottawa police are investigating a man's profane tirade outside Catherine McKenna's office as a possible hate crime. While it shouldn't be illegal, it is most definitely indefensible, True North's Andrew Lawton says. Also, Justin Trudeau is sneaking another vacation and former Greenpeace president Patrick Moore debunks the alarmist narrative on climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices