Transcript: Holly Doan

Aaron Pete's interview with Holly Doan, publisher of Blacklock's Reporter

The news cycle is currently dominated by the American presidential election — but there’s also a lot going on here in Canada. Our guest on the program this week is a veteran journalist and the publisher of a reporter-owned and operated outlet in Ottawa. As you’ll hear, there’s been no shortage of consequential stories this summer. I’m away this week, but I asked podcaster Aaron Pete to bring you this interview.  

Holly Doan is the publisher of Blacklock’s Reporter.

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the interview for free here.

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AP: Holly, welcome to Lean Out. You are the publisher of Blacklock's Reporter, a reporter-owned and operated newsroom in Ottawa that covers bills and regulations, reports and committees, federal court and public accounts. Lean Out is a subscriber, so we can attest that the stories you publish are fascinating. This summer a lot has been going on. How would you summarize some of the key developments that you have been seeing?

HD: I think this has been the summer of unravelling. In my career, as an adult, I can remember the end of term for five governments: Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau. What do those two-term Prime Ministerships all have in common? What they have in common is that they all unravelled spectacularly towards the end. This is something that happens to all governments in year eight or nine. They just become threadbare. The same old magic that worked before when you were, say, posing in Vogue magazine or visiting schools, somehow Canadians aren't giving it to you the same — because you have a record that you're running on.

So, all governments at the end start making choices that aren't the best. They stop listening to their caucuses and they get almost a bunker mentality, where they are just listening to themselves internally. 

You asked about this summer, let me give you a couple of examples. There have been two appointments this summer. Appointments are supposed to be the easy part. You have committees that vet people. You look for the right sort of candidate based on the constituency you're trying to please, or serve. They have had two that have blown up spectacularly. One was the appointment of a new human rights commissioner, who had some unsavoury remarks, racist remarks, in his past when he was with the Muslim Students Association. His appointment was revoked literally at the 11th hour, minutes before he was to take office. 

Then, more recently, we had the appointment of a new senator from Manitoba. A talk radio show host, Charles Adler, who has spent the last number of years in B.C., although he has a base in Manitoba too. Manitoba is a place where the First Nations vote and opinion counts. Because, after all, our Prime Minister said that the relationship with First Nations was his most important relationship. Not long into that appointment, it was discovered that Mr. Adler had said some very shocking, I would say, and racist things on talk radio in his past, which had been the subject of a complaint by the First Nations to the CRTC and the Broadcast Standards Council. 

So, what's my point? My point is when governments get tired and old, they get sloppy. They push the buttons, but they don't do their homework over in the appointments office.

AP: What stories in recent months have surprised you?

HD: Well, aside from what I just said about some of the bad choices, some other stories that we've looked into. You remember in 2015 when this government was elected, one of their planks was the middle class. Do you remember? “We are working to support the middle class and those working hard to join it.” Well, how did that work out? They had a middle class minister when the government started. They don't have that portfolio anymore. Recently, Blacklocks had a story from the Privy Council Office, which is the administrative arm of the cabinet. They poll constantly. They poll much deeper and with focus groups, whereas the regular pollsters don't do that. They have something called continuous qualitative data collection of Canadians’ views. These are the only polls Blacklock’s reads, because they're the ones that cabinet reads. They tell you what they want to know: How did that program work out? Did it fail? What do Canadians think about it? How are they feeling? Could we campaign on that? Is that an issue?

So, one of the things they polled on recently was the middle class. They wanted to know: How it's going with the middle class? Do you consider yourself middle class? And most people said, yeah, they did consider themselves middle class. But how's it going? That question didn't come back too well for them. 

I'll read from what the Privy Council said: When questioning Canadians about their feelings of middle class, “all felt that the quality of life for the middle class had changed in their lifetime, with many believing that life had become considerably less affordable.” Now, maybe you would say you knew that. Energy poverty, the price of food, inflation. But that's important because you can now look towards the election and see the government either trying to roll out programs again that appeal to the middle class, or avoiding that subject. 

AP: The opioid crisis is something I've covered on my show, The Bigger Than Me podcast, and follow closely. Earlier this month, you reported on a briefing note from the addictions minister Ya’ara Saks that said it was inaccurate to claim that the decriminalization of cocaine and opioids in B.C. had led to an increase in overdose deaths. And yet, as you note, data from the coroner shows that the deaths have increased by 16.5% during decriminalization. How do you think through this story — and what does it mean for British Columbians?

HD: Let me ask, what did you find in your work — out of interest’s sake?

AP: When I spoke to Julian Somers, one of the interesting pieces that he had mentioned was that when he started sharing his approach to the research, the government was not interested in what he had to say. Then, they started to pull access from his research and what his findings were. That was very alarming, because it does speak to how government inertia can start to have an impact on good policy.

HD: They were ready to go down with the ship on that one, absolutely. You will remember that the decriminalization of cocaine and opioids began in February 2023, and it was revoked, suddenly, in May of 2024. 15 months. It was supposed to go three years. So, a government that was buckling down really hard on that policy had to accept an abrupt about-face when British Columbians complained of opioid deaths increasing and “public disorder.” So, the government pulled back on that. 

However, it doesn't mean they might not want to approach the subject from another way. This memo that Blacklock’s publicized, that you're talking about, had the addictions minister writing a memo. These are briefing notes to the addictions minister Ya’ara Saks, and said “it was inaccurate to claim” that decriminalization of cocaine and opioids had caused an increase or rise in the number of overdoses.  However, according to the coroner's report, a completely different set of data, it showed in those same 15 months that we talked about, that overdoses were up 16.5%. 

So, it's a little bit tough to complain that it's completely inaccurate that their program had nothing to do with it. That was our interpretation. But whether they buckle down and come at it again if re-elected, I can't imagine that they'd want to campaign on it. I think B.C. really messed them up.

AP: I agree with you. The only thing that I could liken it to is when you shake a bottle of pop — and I would say that that is our War on Drugs approach — when you start to release that, you want to do it very carefully. And what this very much looks like is you just unscrewed that bottle cap and we're in a little bit of a mess right now.

HD: That's not unusual for this government. They have been known to jump into things with both feet and pump out wonderful bumper sticker slogans, like a $10 daycare, for instance. “We gave you $10 daycare.” The problem is no one can get enough daycare, because there aren't enough spaces. They might have wanted to think that through. We see that that has happened on a lot of this government’s programs — that they didn't really quite think it through, because they wanted something that was promotable. They wanted something that matched what was aspirational.

AP: We discussed this a little bit earlier, but your reporting from the Privy Council on Canadians and their quality of life in the middle class — this is something we have been hearing a lot about, including an op-ed in The Globe and Mail in regards to this. One of my questions is: How do we go about supporting people in the middle class? We think about this Globe and Mail article, from Omer Aziz, arguing that the Canadian dream is on life support. According to the Privy Council research, few believe that cabinet cares about the middle class. How significant do you think it is that the cabinet has no official definition of what it means to be middle class?

HD: It's funny that the people the Privy Council polled had an idea, themselves, what middle class was. That was, they described to the Privy Council, “I'm not rich, but I am comfortable.” They had their own definition. Interestingly, even people who maybe had fallen out of the middle class still thought they were in the middle class, but thought the middle class had suffered. Provinces across the country are using a variety of strategies to try to deal with what you call energy poverty, or inflation. But I think the government is going to have to address some of these issues specifically. And this is where it gets political. So, Mr. Poilievre is going to suggest that energy poverty has led, in turn, to food poverty. That is the higher cost for transportation, heating, et cetera, is impoverishing Canadians. So that would be his policy, as you know, “axe the tax.” I think that you see the joyous celebration every time the inflation rate comes down. I think that they know, we all know, that that's what has to happen to solve the food poverty issue. 

But the middle class that can't feed itself at the grocery store is never going to feel that they're in the middle class. We know that from Statistics Canada data collection, actually, in its regular social surveys, that 23% of Canadians are now saying that they are likely to obtain food or meals from community organizations in the next six months. Good grief. That's almost a quarter of Canadians that think they're going to have to go to the food bank in the next six months. I think the prices of food is going to have to be one of the first things that they address, if they want to address the middle class.

By the way, that increased reliance on food banks — that is up from 2021 when 21% of Canadians said they were going to have to rely on some sort of community program. In 2023, the Commons Agriculture Committee heard from these social programs in the community that provide food, saying, “The difference to what we're seeing now … Yes, unemployment is down, but food bank use is up and there are more employed people coming to the food bank.” So I think they are going to have to address food poverty.

AP: Yes. This follows the 2023 testimony of the Commons Agriculture Committee from Neil Hetherington with the Daily Bread food bank in Toronto that full-time workers were accessing food banks. Based on your reporting, what factors do you see contributing to the food insecurity in this country?

HD: Well, it's inflation. I mean the NDP position is, “It’s greedy grocery barons.” I'm not sure that explains it all the way. I think it's inflation.

AP: Housing is an issue I care a lot about. I manage it for my community, Chawathil First Nation. So, I was interested to read your recent story about a federal audit highlighting a housing crisis on First Nations reserves, with a shortfall of 55,000 homes and funding cuts since 2016. Do you have any confidence that the government can realistically meet its goal of building 3.9 million homes nationwide by 2031 — when it is struggling to address housing needs in the one area it has full control over?

HD: The housing minister, Sean Fraser, thinks he can get it done. As he said, “I'm the person who's actually going to go out and do it.” You're right, 3.9 million homes by 2031 … So, the problems that they are facing in building homes for the population at large is they have to have municipal agreements. There has to be incentives. There's developers, there is climate change specifications, there is sprawl — all these things, and multiple levels of government that they have to work through. Do I think they can get to 3.9 million by 2031? Probably not. Are they going to get a chance to do that? Probably not. 

But the interesting thing you're talking about was the one area where they do have control, complete control, over housing is on reserve. In fact, they have a program called On Reserve Housing and they did an audit.

By the way, you say, “Where does Blacklock’s get this stuff?” Well, the government is mandated — and has been since Prime Minister Stephen Harper — when they introduce a program, they are mandated to then have an internal audit of that program to see if it worked or not. So, this is where that's from. By the way, they are mandated to publish those online. That's why we find them. They found that there were 55,000 homes short, and also 81,000 homes that were in really terrible condition. What can you tell us about the condition of housing where your people are?

AP: When I joined in 2022, I was shocked by how horrible our housing had been maintained. First, the homes were about 30 to 40 years old, on average. Never built to any municipal or provincial code, because they're not on municipal or provincial land. The starting place was that they were of lower quality and not built to standards, because they were restricted by the government funding they were receiving.

I have seen huge benefits in the ability to provide money for repairs. The caveat to that is I had a recent meeting with a ISC [Indigenous Services Canada] representative, who said, “You have been using a lot of this funding and we have to prioritize other communities that potentially might need this money more than you.” So, the individuals who are at the end of our list to repair their homes might go to the back of the line in our province, because we've been fixing other people's homes. Which just seems absurd to me. But I would never rely on ISC funding or CMHC [Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation] funding to get our homes built. Right now, we're working with B.C. Housing, because it guarantees that our homes will be built to code and there will be maintenance dollars to make sure they are of a quality that people can live in into the future.

HD: Here you mentioned dollars. That's interesting. Because you think, “If there's 55,000 homes short on reserves, well then put some more money into the program. It must be short, right? You're not spending enough money.” Well, not only are they not spending enough money, you might argue — guess what? This government has cut the funding to on reserve housing. In 2016, when they took office, the funding was $403 million. Today it's $356 million.

AP: Wow.

HD: And the population, since 2016 — since the very same time they were cutting housing money — the population on reserves is young, as you know. The population has grown by 9 percent. So, they knew the trajectory and they cut the funding. Again, the one area where they could, if they wanted to, get in there and just do it. Without any other levels of government to fuss with, they could just do it. What are the conditions like in some of those houses that you've seen?

AP: Oh, it's terrible. Now we're starting to see it addressed. I see hope in our community, because we fixed 35 of 89 homes. But we have a long way to go. And I look at other communities who are not applying for the funding and they're just missing out on improving the quality of the life of their members.

HD: Yeah, that's terrible. I'm from rural Manitoba, so I'm quite familiar with some of the most appalling conditions in that province on reserve. Multiple families in the same house, mould and all of that kind of thing.

AP: Exactly. You also reported on a recent controversy involving opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and The Lake Report, published by Niagara Now. The outlet, which is subsidized by the government, noted comments Poilievre made in Niagara-on-the- Lake that media should forgo subsidies, and then published a passionate editorial that, among other things, accused Poilievre of pandering, lying and misleading. The editorial was shared on social media by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. The author of that editorial, editor-in-chief Richard Harley, has attracted criticism of bias in favour of the government that funds him. How significant do you think this episode is for the national conversation about media subsidies?