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Shawn Buckley

Our next witness today is Mr. Rodney Palmer. Now for those of you that have been following the National Citizens Inquiry, Mr. Palmer testified as a witness at the Toronto hearings. He has come back today to testify about something that’s come up since then, but I will introduce him again.

Mr. Palmer, can we start by having you state your full name for the record, spelling your first and last name.

Rodney Palmer

My name is Rodney James Palmer, R-O-D-N-E-Y  P-A-L-M-E-R.

Shawn Buckley

And Rodney, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Rodney Palmer

I do.

Shawn Buckley

Now, you’re not a journalist now, but you were a journalist for 20 years. You had been a general assignment reporter for The Globe and Mail newspaper. You’ve worked as a daily news reporter at the Vancouver Sun. You were a CBC producer and investigative reporter. From 1996 to 2004, you were a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for CTV News based in India, Israel, and China and, in fact, in that role, you participated in reporting on the SARS pandemic as it first came out in China, as I understand it.

Rodney Palmer

That’s all correct, yes.

Shawn Buckley

Okay, now you’re here today to add to the testimony that you’ve given earlier, so I’ll just let you launch in [Exhibit OT-15].

Rodney Palmer

Since my first testimony in March, there was quite a big story where Twitter decided, basically, at the behest of Elon Musk, to label the CBC’s Twitter page as government-funded media. And this, to me, wasn’t that surprising. He’d already done it for the BBC; he’d already done it for National Public Radio. And the CBC is government-funded media: it receives its funding from the government; it is media. I wasn’t that surprised by it.

The 16th of April was when it was done, and the next day, the CBC paused its Twitter activity and made quite a big fuss and a public announcement that it didn’t like being labelled government-funded media, which I found a little bit surprising. And there was an announcement made on the CBC website which quoted Brodie Fenlon, the CBC’s editor-in-chief, the top journalist at the CBC, saying, “According to Twitter, ‘government-funded’ media means ‘outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over the editorial content.’”

That, specifically, what he objected to and what the CBC brass objected to was not being called government-funded media but Twitter’s definition of that—meaning the government is involved in the journalism. The next day, Mr. Brodie Fenlon wrote on his blog explaining why they’ve paused the CBC News Twitter accounts: “Editorial independence is a bedrock principle of CBC journalism.” And then he had three sentences: “We are beholden to no one. We report without fear or favour. We act only in the public interest.”

It seemed to me that this was right out of a Marvel comic, where somehow the CBC was the Justice League and had these great principles, and I knew all of these to be false. When I read it, I was quite concerned about this. He went on to say that “while CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded,” there is “no —” and he emphasizes “ zero — involvement in our editorial content or journalism.” No involvement. Zero involvement. I did an entire testimony for an hour and a half here that showed that they’re basically carrying out government propaganda. I described the transition of the CBC News & Current Affairs from a news-gathering organization into a propaganda organization on behalf of the Trudeau government during the COVID period.

So I knew this not to be true, what Mr. Fenlon was writing. Especially because I keep hearing the same experts on the CBC—this is what tweaked me to it initially, as a listener and a viewer. They were going to independent experts over and over and over again, and these people did not sound like the scientists I’ve come to know and work with in the last 10 or 20 years in my business. These were people who had clearly had corporate media training: the type of people who begin an interview with, “Well, that’s a very good question. I’m so glad you asked it.” This is somebody who’s had training. Politicians speak this way. Scientists generally don’t. People pushing a product on behalf of a company talk that way when they’re in the media.

The one at the centre, Professor Timothy Caulfield, is a great Canadian. He is a Canadian Research Chair in Law and Public Policy [sic] [Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy] at the University of Alberta in Calgary [sic] [Edmonton]. And for people who don’t know, the Canadian research chairs are at every university, and they’re funded entirely by the Canadian government.

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Something like $140 million every year pays for these research chairs to be representatives as the greatest in their field in their area, which Mr. Caulfield has held that position for some time.

On April 2nd of 2020, however, just a couple of weeks into the emergency, Mr. Caulfield was granted $380,000 of government money to push a government agenda. This came from the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada combined. And specifically, what he said he was going to do was focus “on misinformation around cures and treatments for COVID-19.” Well, two weeks into an emergency, there is no misinformation: there is only information, and scientists are looking for any information they can get worldwide. But Mr. Caulfield, a law professor, was going to focus on misinformation about cures and treatments. And he took $380,000 from the government to do it. And this is how he did it: he went on the CBC and talked about the government policy—whatever the government wanted to say, that’s what he was saying.

One of the first appearances was in May of 2020, where he appeared with Nancy Carlson, the CBC TV Edmonton six o’clock news host. This is one of the most important people in journalism in all of Alberta. Nancy Carlson brought him on and said, “You have a very impressive resume. Calling you an expert is incredibly valid,” as if she was trying to convince herself of this line. She didn’t say he’d received $381,000 from the government to push the government COVID response agenda. That was not mentioned. That was suppressed information; that was a lie by concealment. She said, “Everybody watching, this is a chance for you to get the facts right from an expert.” Now, Mr. Caulfield is not a scientist and doesn’t pretend to be one. He wasn’t introduced as one. He was introduced as a law professor and said, “Today we are debunking all of the myths around COVID-19.”

I didn’t know three or four months into it that there were myths. I thought there was just lockdown, distancing, getting my groceries at a certain hour, wearing a mask when I didn’t want to. And Mr. Caulfield came on and said, “Do not take hydroxychloroquine.” I don’t know how he knew that this was a drug that people shouldn’t take. He also said, “Don’t think you can boost your immune system in any way.” This is when people were taking vitamin D3, vitamin C, quercetin, zinc. These are the things that were recommended for boosting the immune system, and Mr. Caulfield said, “Don’t think you can boost your immune system.” And Nancy Carlson didn’t tell her viewers on CBC Edmonton that he was speaking on behalf of the government.

About a year after that, in April 2021, they upped the ante. Professor Timothy Caulfield, the Canada Research Chair in Law and Public Policy [sic] [Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy] at the University of Alberta, helped to form an organization of actual scientists called ScienceUpFirst. And they had a foundational grant of $1.75 million from the federal government’s Immunization Partnership Fund whose mandate says that it is important that as many Canadians as possible get vaccinated against COVID-19. This is ScienceUpFirst, the organization, a new organization.

Mr. Caulfield appears in October of 2021 when people were starting to realize that ivermectin was preventing COVID, treating early COVID, and helping people get out of the intensive care units much more quickly. There were many, many studies emerging around the world showing this. And there was a push to suppress ivermectin that, I understand from witnesses who have been here at this Inquiry, was designed so that it would appear there was no medicine so that it could satisfy an American requirement for the emergency use of a vaccine that was not fully tested. And so he’s on this political show called “The House” with a guy named Chris Hall. And Chris Hall is an amazing CBC reporter, host, anchor. I liken him to Freddie Van Fleet of the Toronto Raptors. He was steady as she goes. Chris could do anything. And he ended his career as the host of “The House.”

And in his last season, he betrayed Canada by allowing Tim Caulfield to lie to them about ivermectin. And Chris actually uttered the words, “Have we heard the end of ivermectin overdoses yet?” Meaning, are Canadians going to stop overdosing on ivermectin? Well, Chris apparently didn’t know that nobody ever overdosed on ivermectin. There are more overdoses from aspirin causing death every year in America than there have been in the 50-year history of ivermectin. And he said this. And he didn’t tell anyone that his expert on misinformation, as he was introduced to us on “The House,”

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was actually part of ScienceUpFirst, which received $1.75 million from the Trudeau government to push vaccines. He suppressed that information. He told us he was an expert on something that he wasn’t and didn’t tell us he was working for the government.

Mr. Caulfield showed up on “The National” with our friend Adrienne Arsenault talking about the truth about immune boosters, during which Mr. Caulfield was not introduced as a member of ScienceUpFirst, which gets its money from the Canadian government, from the Trudeau government, to promote vaccines—this was not mentioned. He was introduced as a law professor and the Canada Research Chair. So Mr. Caulfield said that “immune boosting,” this is a quote, “is kind of a myth. Because it’s not a muscle.” So, as a medical person, he made a good lawyer when he said that because he clearly doesn’t understand much about the human immune system. He then said, “You don’t want to boost your immune system. That’s anaphylaxis. That’s an autoimmune disease.” He said a healthy immune system is anaphylaxis, and it’s an autoimmune disease. It’s neither of those things. That’s why we have different language for all of those things. They’re not the same. We didn’t get to hear that he’s being paid by the Canadian government to say this. We were lied to by omission by Adrienne Arsenault in that story. She ended it by saying, “You’re a wise man as always.”

Now, “[Cross] Country Checkup,” one of my favourite shows on the CBC. I used to work in phone-in-shows, and it really brings together Canada on a weekly basis. And it’s hosted by Ian Hanomansing, a longtime veteran of CBC television. He had a section called, Ask Me Anything, which was all about COVID. Ask the doctor. And he had Dr. Isaac Bogoch on there, innumerable times. And on this occasion, December 2021, he brought him on. He introduced him as an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital, which he is. But he didn’t say he’s a scientific advisor for ScienceUpFirst, which receives $1.75 million from the Trudeau government to make us take vaccines. Didn’t mention that. During this interview, he declared, “Two doses won’t be enough Canada.” He said, quote, “This is clearly a three-dose vaccine.”

Dr. Bogoch showed up on multiple shows after that. In September 2022, he was on CBC “Metro Morning” in Toronto. This is the morning show in the Toronto area. And he said it was called “When to get your Fourth Dose.” Previously, it was a three-dose vaccine. In October 2022, he was on CBC News saying, “You got to get your next dose every six months.” And Andrew Chang introduced him as an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Isaac Bogoch. Didn’t mention ScienceUpFirst. Didn’t mention he’s a spokesman for the Canadian government, or he advises ScienceUpFirst, which is paid for by the Canadian government.

He also appeared on “The Dose” with Dr. Brian Goldman. Dr. Brian Goldman has these great shows called “White Coat, Black Art.” He’s a great guy. I really like this show. He kind of takes you as a listener, as a patient, which we’ve all been, into the world of medicine as he sees it. He’s so curious, which is really the greatest attribute of any broadcaster, the curiosity. And he brought on a doctor named Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Toronto, which she is, top person, so decorated, so accomplished. Didn’t mention an executive of ScienceUpFirst, paid for by the Canadian government to promote vaccination. Didn’t tell us that. And during this interview in June of 2021, Dr. Tara Moriarty said, “Anything that states . . .” This was the red flag—how do you recognize misinformation? Well, this was their lesson to Canada. “Anything that states that vaccines cause or may cause something is a red flag for misinformation. We don’t have any evidence,” said Tara Moriarty, “that the vaccines cause anything but immunity against COVID-19.” We don’t have any evidence. So, she said, don’t believe anybody.

Well, the Canadian government seems to have evidence. They had a list that these numbers of Canadians have been injured or killed by the vaccines. They say it caused Guillain-Barre syndrome 27 times. They say it caused low blood platelets 196 times.

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Canadian government says that the COVID vaccines caused 55 cardiac arrests, 73 cardiac failures—I’m pretty sure that’s death—145 heart attacks, 1153 predicted cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, 376 cases of deep vein thrombosis, 524 pulmonary embolisms. I feel like I want to say a partridge in a pear tree here. Blood clots, 324. These numbers are really small. These are the ones that are admitted to on a Canadian government website that the CBC just told us didn’t exist—78 acute kidney injuries; 37 liver injuries; 187 Canadians with Bell’s palsy; 281 Canadians got a stroke from the COVID vaccine, according to the Government of Canada website; 16 of them had a very rare inflammation of the spinal cord, never heard of it; 776 cases of anaphylaxis; 5 fetal growth restrictions; 87 spontaneous abortions; and independent of all of the above, 427 deaths.

Let’s just go back up to the slide. “We don’t have any evidence,” said the ScienceUpFirst spokesperson for the Canadian government—disguised as an expert on Dr. Brian Goldman’s show—misleading Canadians that everything was safe and effective when, in fact, it’s a game of Russian roulette and the CBC suppressed that information and told you to go ahead and do it. They said it’s safe—there’s no evidence.

There’s a story this month that we’re starting to recognize excess deaths, excess all-cause mortalities. The province of Nova Scotia recently noted 262 excess deaths, and the CBC was quick to report that they’re not saying why. And the province has repeatedly declined an interview as to why. They have no official word on why. So they put the ScienceUpFirst scientists and spokespeople, lawyers, on the air, or in this story, where they said, Tara “Moriarty believes the excess mortality is mostly being caused by COVID-19 . . .” This is now: this is May 2023, “. . . caused by COVID-19, urging people . . . , ” and the World Health Organization says it’s over. So it’s caused by COVID-19, according to her, or she believes it, and she’s “urging people to wear masks and get vaccinated.” This is the solution in May 2023. They didn’t mention that she’s paid, that ScienceUpFirst is paid—and she’s an executive—$1.75 million to say these things on behalf of the Trudeau government. Tim Caulfield was in the same piece, identified as “a misinformation expert” now. I agree. Caulfield said, “The COVID-19 vaccines are safe, despite some claims that they’re causing large numbers of people to die.” “Some claims” by the government of Canada, Mr. Caulfield.

“The Current” on CBC Radio used to be one of my favourite things to wake up to in the morning with Matt Galloway, one of the greatest hosts that the CBC has. And one of his stories was that “our best shot at getting back to normal is getting everyone a shot in the arm.” So he put on this cute little story with a researcher named Samantha Yammine. She’s a scientist and she’s afraid of needles, and they go through this really cute little conversation about how she overcame her fear of needles. But they never mentioned that she is on the executive of ScienceUpFirst, which received $1.75 million from the Trudeau government to promote vaccines. Not a word, he tricked us. If I’m listening to that, I think they found it. Where did they find this person? Well, they found her because that’s all they do.

The CBC is using ScienceUpFirst and not telling us where the information or where the point of view is coming from. It’s coming from the Trudeau government. And they’re not telling us that on a daily basis.

So now ScienceUpFirst has got quite a coup. They’ve embedded one of their own in the CBC staff. CBC “The Nature of Things,” you know David Suzuki at, I think, 80 years old, finally retired, and he’s been replaced with a co-host, Anthony Morgan. I looked this guy up: He’s great, I’d hire him too. He’s fantastic. He’s engaging, he’s a molecular scientist. He is one of these curious fellows who just lets you feel that he really wants to learn, but he’s on the executive of ScienceUpFirst, paid for by the Trudeau government to promote vaccines. And now he’s the host of a CBC,

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one of the most important science shows we have in Canada, “The Nature of Things.” He’s embedded.

ScienceUpFirst has its prime directive to stop the spread of misinformation. What is misinformation, and who decides? Apparently, it’s the Trudeau government that pays them; otherwise, why would they pay them?

When Brodie Fenlon says the government has no or zero involvement in our editorial content of journalism, that’s not true. And when they got caught, this is the graph they showed from the CBC annual report. Now you’ll notice up the left side, it goes up— Basically, it’s a snapshot. A bar graph is designed to give you a quick visual snapshot of what all the numbers mean. The blue is the revenue that CBC earns, and the burgundy or the purple is the government funding. So it looks as though it’s a little bit less than 50 per cent. Except if you look up, it’s going up in increments of hundreds of millions until it gets to very near the top when it goes from 700 million to 1.7 billion. It jumps from increments of 100 million to increments of a billion partway up, so the graph visual is actually not accurate.

Now, this was pointed out by one of the great Canadian academics, Dr. Jordan Peterson, who then put out what it actually looks like. And it shows you, and it’s no big deal. I mean, we know the CBC gets all of its money from the government, or CBC Radio does; CBC Television gets most of its money from the government. So why would they obscure that fact? Why would they give that half-truth? Why would they mislead us into that visual snapshot that they don’t? I would put forth to the Commission—because that’s how they roll now. The CBC is all about misleading. It’s not about news gathering or the dissemination of truth. Brodie Fenlon oversaw the betrayal of the audience, the betrayal of Canadians, the betrayal of every Canadian who listened to an expert on the CBC and thought they were an expert, not a spokesperson for the Trudeau government. But who he didn’t betray was the Liberal Government. He was a good soldier there.

This is from the Liberal Government website today: “A re-elected Liberal Government will require [that] Canadian travellers on inter-provincial trains, commercial flights” and “cruise ships, and other federally regulated vessels to be vaccinated” for COVID. “A re-elected Liberal Government will ensure vaccination across the federal public service.” So if you are a public service worker and you dodged the vaccine because you didn’t want it, because maybe you figured out it was the same Russian roulette that the Canadian government info base describes, a re-elected Liberal Government will ensure you’re vaccinated or fired, according to this platform. And they’ll work with “Crown corporations [and] federally regulated workplaces to ensure vaccination is prioritized for workers [in these sectors].” We know now the thing doesn’t work. Your own websites show that people are dying from it. Thousands of people are permanently injured from it. And your platform is more—or lose your job. And the CBC is your way to convince us to do that.

A week after, Twitter removed the government-funded media tags. It came after the Global Task Force on Public Media called on Twitter to correct the description of public broadcasters. Now, I mentioned in my previous testimony that the Global Task Force on Public Media is an amalgamate or conglomeration or a cartel of serious public broadcasters that do real journalism or used to across the world: the CBC, the BBC, ABC Australia, Korean Broadcasting, France Television, Radio New Zealand, ZDF Germany, and SVT Sweden. They have this Global Task Force to develop a consensus and speak with a single strong voice. So they came down heavy on Twitter. The current president of the Global Task Force is our own CBC president, Catherine Tate. They noted that Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as those with varying degrees of government involvement and editorial content, which I’ve just shown that it has. So Twitter dropped it all and, in, I think, a cheeky little move, also dropped it from China’s Xinhua News Agency and Russia’s RT, saying, “Okay, none of you are government-funded now.” They’re all state broadcasters, including the CBC, in the strictest sense of the phrase.

I have a few story ideas that the public will be interested in hearing because I used to sit in story meetings daily with some of the best journalists I’ve ever worked with in my life when I worked at CBC.

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We used to put out story ideas that were kind of the obvious things to cover that day. Here are a few that would be a good idea for the CBC to cover: investigate the number of Canadians killed by COVID vaccines; investigate the number of Canadians disabled by COVID vaccines; investigate the details of vaccine approval safety standards that were waived in order to get the COVID vaccines into Canadian arms. Investigate the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: Where did it come from? What are we doing with all this stuff? We don’t know where it came from. We know where it came from—but let’s admit it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s investigate it. That’s your job.

What is the purpose of gain-of-function research and development of pathogens? Who benefits from that? What is Canada’s involvement in gain-of-function research and development of pathogens? Why did we fire those two Chinese nationals who were running the Canadian Level 4 Virus Lab in Winnipeg six months before COVID broke out? What’s that story? Because we still don’t know. Go find out. And investigate the conflicts of interest between Health Canada and the pharmaceutical companies. That one you could do with Google.

But you’re not going to hear any of those stories on the CBC because these are the people you’re going to hear over and over again as the experts. And these are the shows you’re going to hear them on. And these are the broadcasters who are going to tell you they’re experts and suppress the fact that they all are affiliated with ScienceUpFirst, which gets all of its funding from the Trudeau government—and significant funding. This is the way they’re going to explain themselves when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And these are the phrases that they’re going to pull off the Marvel comic movies when they’re going to say that they report without fear or favour in the public interest. And I changed his name to Chief Propagandist. In case you didn’t notice.

So I have to tell you that it is with great regret that I’m going to make six recommendations to the Commission. I recommend that the CBC President Catherine Tate be dismissed from her position, all vice presidents and executives be dismissed from their positions. They can no longer work there, having committed the atrocity on Canada of suppressing the identity of spokesmen for the Trudeau government as experts for years to trick us into taking this vaccine. Certainly, dismiss the editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon. Although he might become a senator before you get a chance to do that.

Dismiss all on-air staff who are evidenced to have participated in the propaganda disguised as journalism since March 2020. Detach from the Trusted News Initiative and all other fact-suppressing organizations which currently determine which experts and which stories Canadians are allowed to hear on the CBC. Replace the position of ombudsman with a board, including journalistic, legal, and scientific expertise, and give them the power to fire journalists who breach the corporation’s journalistic standards instead of apologizing. You can go on the CBC’s apology page, I call it—it’s their correction page. There’s half a dozen every month for the last three years. “Big deal. We’re sorry. We got it wrong again.” Fire them. We don’t need them. And this new board that replaces the ombudsman, I recommend you task it with investigating who in the CBC participated in misleading Canadians by routinely suppressing the identity of government spokespeople for the purpose of promoting ineffective and potentially harmful experimental vaccines during the COVID emergency.

The CBC is government-funded news. We know that. And Twitter is right because they’re using government-funded experts, disguising them as “independent” to give us government-loyal messaging.

I just wanted to thank the Commission for allowing me to come back. As a Canadian citizen with some expertise, I feel compelled to come forward and say what I know to be true. Thank you.

Shawn Buckley

No, we’re not done. I don’t have any questions for you, Rodney, I’ll ask if the Commissioners have questions. And they do.

Commissioner Drysdale

I’d like to refer to some of your graphs. Can you bring up the graph where you showed the Canadian government counts of the various deaths and vaccine reactions?

Rodney Palmer

This is from health-infobase.canada.ca. It was updated on the 7th of March, which seems to me a while ago. This one here?

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Commissioner Drysdale

Right. My question there is, and you may not know the answer, but under pregnancy outcomes, it says spontaneous abortions, 87. And then it’s got deaths, 427. Are the 87 deaths of the babies in the mothers’ tummies not included in the 427?

Rodney Palmer

I don’t know that. And the reason is this is not an easy website to navigate. So the information is there, but it is more than likely intentionally obfuscated. You have to go through link to link to link to link. So there is something under deaths, and it says 427, and more than likely, you will be able to find if they are included or if they are additional. But I don’t know what the answer is.

Commissioner Drysdale

My second question has to do with the slide you have on the Liberal Government platform, three points that it had on there. And my question to you about that—is that the current Liberal platform?

Rodney Palmer

I downloaded that today.

Commissioner Drysdale

You don’t know if that’s the current one?

Rodney Palmer

That’s today. That’s up there. You can look that up under platform re-election, I think it is something like that. Yeah.

Commissioner Drysdale

So today, I just want to make sure I’ve got this right. So today, the platform that the Liberals are running on is—require that travellers must be vaccinated; ensure that vaccines are across the federal public service; and that Crown corporations and federally regulated workplaces will ensure that vaccines are prioritized. That is still their government platform today?

Rodney Palmer

“A re-elected liberal government will,” is what it says, and then it gives those ones. And I’ve not augmented them all, except to add the highlights for my own notes.

Commissioner Drysdale

I wanted to make sure I understood that. Could you also now show the graph of the income for CBC?

Rodney Palmer

That is off the CBC’s annual report, and the second one on the right was provided by Dr. Jordan Peterson.

Commissioner Drysdale

My question on that is, I’m looking at some of the other—and I’m asking this question because I’ve seen it from other witnesses. There’s various other items there. They’ve got government-funding revenue; they’ve got advertising. How much federal government is in their advertising income? Because we see the federal government advertising on CBC constantly. Is there additional government funding hidden in some of those other stripes that should be in the government funding?

Rodney Palmer

I don’t know the answer to that. But I’ll tell you that I certainly suspect that the whole thing’s a sham. So then, more than likely, they’re hiding other things. But what’s very interesting, what you say about the federal government advertising: When I travel to America, I see almost entirely pharmaceutical advertising, and there are very strict rules that they must announce the side effects. And it’s almost comedic to listen to the side effects. They list these horrible lists of side effects to their pills, and then they say, “but ask your doctor about getting it.” In Canada, we don’t have pharma advertising on television. But we have a de facto pharma advertising in this ScienceUpFirst group that is disguising itself as experts going on the CBC and denying the side effects—saying they don’t exist.

Commissioner Drysdale

Yes. Also, in your slide—and you don’t have to bring it up—but your slide about CBC story ideas, and you listed a few things about investigation. I mean, I ask you, wouldn’t a good source of those stories be for some CBC reporter to be sitting here following the National Citizens Inquiry? And why do you think none of them have done that?

Rodney Palmer

I think they would have a hard time wiping the egg off their face once they realize they have blood on their hands. They’re not coming. They don’t want to hear this.

Commissioner Drysdale

You know, I believe, I hope I get this right. I believe I saw a story on CBC not that long ago and I could be wrong, it might have been one of the other stations. But the point is they did an entire investigation: They had an investigative news team out to decide whether or not Starbucks was recycling their paper cups or not. They put sensors in them, and they traced them to the garbage cans, and they did an incredible investigation as to whether they were recycling their coffee cups or not. And they can’t do any research on this? They don’t have the capability? Do they not have the will?

Rodney Palmer

Won’t—not can’t. My dad used to say, “Can’t lives on won’t street.”

Commissioner Drysdale

Thank you.

Commissioner Massie

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Palmer, for this second enlightening presentation.

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It seems to me that we are in a very, very hard conundrum with respect to financing this major news institution in Canada. You’re making suggestions to reform it. But the business model that they’re living on right now seems to be struggling to get, I would say, other sources of finance besides the government, for whatever reason. And even if you reformed it, if you maintain the finance from the government, what would guarantee that with this current government or a future government—that would want to be as, I would say, intrusive in the agenda of CBC—what would allow to maintain the independence of the CBC with the government? Because they need money, and the money’s coming from the government.

Rodney Palmer

But the money’s come from the government since the beginning, and there have been multiple different parties, two, you know, rotating. And the CBC’s always been there. To your point, I think there needs to be an investigation about how it happened. Just like we have to have an investigation into where the virus came from. Otherwise, we can’t stop it from happening again.

But there’s a lot of talk about defunding the CBC, which makes me nervous because I think it means dismantling CBC News and Current Affairs, and I think it’s foundational to our democracy. Without journalism, we have no democracy because democracy requires the transparent distribution of facts on a daily basis. From those same facts, we all make our opinions. And then in an ideal situation in a democracy, the majority of the opinions are where the decisions are made. But how can we possibly form an opinion when the facts are fake? When we don’t agree on what’s true, we can’t possibly agree on what’s right.

Commissioner Massie

Aren’t you describing some of the, I would say, political platforms for some of the current political parties we have in Canada? Are they basing their promise and ruling of society based on true facts? Or their representation of reality? Which sometimes is, I would say, not aligned with reality. But as long as people believe it, they will be re-elected, as you’ve shown from the platform, which is a copy-paste from the previous platform that they ran on in the previous election.

Rodney Palmer

I think that there’s two different things there. One is what the government says, and one is what the CBC says, and today, they’re one and the same. So this is the problem, is that the CBC has let itself become a propagandist in an indefensible cause—which is promoting a vaccine that doesn’t work, that hurts people, that doesn’t do its job, and continues to promote it, even in May, this month, are saying, “Get vaccinated, wear a mask.” All those people that died probably from the vaccine, we don’t know, in Nova Scotia, it’s being denied. It’s not being investigated properly. They could find out if they tried, but they don’t try. It just goes back to, it’s not that they can’t do it—it’s that they won’t do it.

They have to get reassigned back to what their job was. I don’t know exactly what the mechanism is. It’s going to take more people than me to figure it out, but that’s an excellent suggestion about putting them back on track in a way that they’re not going to get off the rails again. We need some new mechanism in place to ensure on a daily basis that the CBC is doing the job.

Commissioner Massie

Thank you very much.

Commissioner Kaikkonen

Good morning. Thank you for your testimony. The Canada Research Chair selection program used to be very rigorous, and it used to give new researchers who had a PhD that opportunity to build on that body of research. Given the timing of Dr. Timothy Caulfield’s Canada Research selection and his research, I’m just wondering at what point he would have been able to build on a body of research when the pandemic is only three years old. Taking that thought further, is it not incumbent on CBC journalists—and other mainstream journalists—to actually investigate the qualifications and not just accept that Canada Research Chair title? Before declaring that the person they’re interviewing as an expert?

[00:40:00]

Because Canada Research Chair is usually given to a person who is brand new in creating that body of research. And the exception would be if they had a renewed contract under the Canada Research Chair, where they would already have that body of research. But if we’re declaring indiscriminately everybody to be an expert, at what point do we consider that maybe they’re not, as a journalist?

Rodney Palmer

Well, I don’t think this is an error that these people have been put on; I think it’s by design. There’s too many examples, and I’ve only shown a handful of them. It’s just too obvious that in every single case, they suppressed the fact that they’re with this separate organization that’s largely a slush fund for the Trudeau government to promote vaccines and to put experts.

Caulfield is the only one who’s not a scientist among them, but he’s declared himself, self-declared, misinformation expert, and the CBC to my feeling has never defined what misinformation is. I’ve written to Brodie Fenlon and to others at the CBC asking to please define misinformation: How do you define it? And provide examples outside of the COVID model of where you’ve applied it. And why you feel that you have to correct it? And that’s almost the only thing that they do because they’re not correcting misinformation. They’re promoting a propaganda message. That’s what they’re doing. So your question suggests that there’s a mistake being made and there’s not. This is intentional.

Commissioner Kaikkonen

I also note he’s not a doctor. Thank you very much.

Rodney Palmer

Yes.

Commissioner Drysdale

Sorry, I couldn’t resist, seeing as I have you here.

Can you comment on the effect that the latest changes to the Canadian Broadcasting Act will have, I mean, on the CBC and on social media? You know, you talked about changes that we could consider to the CBC. But it sounds like it’s going the other way. It sounds like they’re making changes to independent broadcasters and bringing them into this model that was created in the ’70s or ’90s, or whenever it came up. Second part of that question, can you comment on the independence of the members of the CRTC?

Rodney Palmer

I can’t comment on that because I’m not familiar with the makeup of the CRTC at the moment. However, in the past, there has been a bit of a revolving door with tech companies and the CRTC.

On the first part of the question about the Broadcasting Act, we saw an almost instantaneous reaction where the CRTC was openly discussing eliminating Fox News, like it or not, one of the biggest networks, news networks in the world, banning it from cable in Canada. On what grounds? On the grounds that they can, it appears. We should expect more of it. We are seeing censorship on a daily basis on the CBC. We’re seeing the elevation of the government agenda for COVID vaccines and the suppression of independent voices. We are seeing the censorship of people who want to speak out. We’re seeing the censorship of vaccine-injured people, the entire stories are being censored. And the censors are never the good guys. The censors are the Dr. Evil in Brodie Fenlon’s Marvel comic universe that he lives in.

Commissioner Drysdale

Thank you.

Shawn Buckley

Mr. Palmer, are you aware whether the CBC is under any specific legal duty in its enabling or enacting legislation to report fairly to the public?

Rodney Palmer

Most likely. That’s a good question. I’m not intimate with all the language in the Broadcasting Act, but more than likely it is there, and certainly in their foundational documents to report the news of the day. I remember when you couldn’t have advertising in the newscast. And then they changed it so you could have it after the first, I believe it was, eight or nine minutes so that the first chunk was advertising free—normally, when they do their political reporting of the day—and then you can have an advertisement afterwards. So there are very strict rules about how much commercial voice can get into a newscast. But there’s commercial voices daily in the newscast now that I’ve just demonstrated.

Shawn Buckley

I’m just curious because you just think as a Canadian citizen that in funding, creating a broadcaster, a state broadcaster, that there would be a duty in the legislation creating it for that broadcaster to report fairly to the Canadian public.

[00:45:00]

Where I was going is I’m just going to read to you two different sections of our Criminal Code. And the first one I’m reading with in mind—because you’re saying we should fire the leadership of the CBC, and so this is 217.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code.

“Everyone who undertakes or has the authority to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person or any other person arising from that work or task.” I can tell you I read that as including—if you’re running the CBC or some other news organization and you’re directing basically propaganda on health issues that if that leads to harm in the public, you could be criminally liable.

Now, I’ll just read you another section of the Criminal Code and then I’m going to ask your thoughts. This other section I would think would apply to the leadership of the CBC, the public face, the journalists, and to any experts that would be attending and spreading misinformation with the view to having people vaccinated—if it leads to harm or death. And that is section 219 of the Criminal Code dealing with criminal negligence, and so listen carefully.

“Everyone is criminally negligent who in doing anything, or in omitting to do anything that is his duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.” I’m wondering, just because you’re familiar with how journalism works, if that section could be applied to journalists and the CBC?

Rodney Palmer

It could be applied to so many people. I think it should be applied to the guy who turns the microphone on and lets somebody lie—live to Canada. Every single person down to the technicians who participate knowingly in this fraud should be investigated. There’s two sections of the Criminal Code you mentioned; I mentioned one in my previous testimony about fomenting hatred against an identifiable group. The unvaccinated became identifiable based on their absence of proof of vaccination and the social outcasting that the CBC promoted. I think that maybe another recommendation would be to investigate for criminal wrongdoing among the journalists at the CBC—right down to the producers, the writers, the story editors, the technicians, as well as the anchors, the hosts, the editors, and the executives.

Shawn Buckley

Well, it’ll be interesting because there’s not an example in history of a Western democracy experiencing what we’ve experienced with a state broadcaster. If we can get control of our institutions back, it’ll be interesting to see how we deal with that.

Rodney Palmer

The problem here is that they have the full support of the current government, and they’re acting on behalf of the current government. To get back to your point about whether there’s an obligation to tell the truth, I can assure you that in the foundational documents of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it did not say that the purpose is to espouse the views of the government of the day. It did not say that.

Shawn Buckley

Thank you. I have no further questions.

Rodney Palmer

Thank you.

Shawn Buckley

Mr. Palmer, on behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry, I’d like to sincerely thank you for returning and sharing this testimony with us.

Rodney Palmer

It’s my pleasure, thank you, and my duty.

[00:49:01]

Final Review and Approval: Margaret Phillips, September 6, 2023.   

The evidence offered in this transcript is a true and faithful record of witness testimony given during the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) hearings. The transcript was prepared by members of a team of volunteers using an “intelligent verbatim” transcription method.

For further information on the transcription process, method, and team, see the NCI website: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/about-these-transcripts/

Credentials

• Former CBC investigative journalist

Summary

This is the second testimony by Mr. Rodney Palmer, former investigative journalist for the CBC, concerning the role the CBC played during the pandemic and to date. Mr. Palmer points to the falsehoods put forth by the CBC, the people they coined as “experts” to push the government narrative and the misleading and completely false statements made on air by otherwise accomplished, trusted, veteran journalists.

Early in the pandemic, very little was known about treatment however, the CBC presented their “expert,” a law Professor Timothy Caulfield from the University of Alberta , who said on air, “Do not take hydroxychloroquine.” Mr. Palmer reports Professor Caulfield also said, “Don’t think you can boost your immune system in any way.” Professor Timothy Caulfield is a research chair at the U of A and research chairs are fully funded by the government of Canada. Nancy Carlson of the CBC hosted Mr. Caulfield and neglected to tell her audience that he’d received $381,000 from the government to push the government COVID response agenda. That was suppressed information; that was a lie by concealment. She said, “Everybody watching, this is a chance for you to get the facts right from an expert.”

Mr. Palmer cites many more examples of respected journalists from the CBC calling people experts when, in fact, they are not. Mr. Palmer reveals, “I mean, we know the CBC gets all of its money from the government, or CBC Radio does; CBC Television gets most of its money from the government. So why would they obscure that fact? Why would they give that half-truth? Why would they mislead us into that visual snapshot that they don’t? I would put forth to the Commission—because that’s how they roll now. The CBC is all about misleading. It’s not about news gathering or the dissemination of truth. Brodie Fenlon oversaw the betrayal of the audience, the betrayal of Canadians, the betrayal of every Canadian who listened to an expert on the CBC and thought they were an expert, not a spokesperson for the Trudeau government. But who he didn’t betray was the Liberal Government. He was a good soldier there.”

Rodney makes six recommendations for the Inquiry to consider concerning the CBC beginning with the firing of the President of the CBC Catherine Tate, all vice presidents and their executives.

Rodney Palmer – Mar 30, 2023 – Toronto, Ontario