Izzy Asper

Otherwise, I'm gonna wait you out until you get decertified." And they submitted a unfair labor practices complaint regarding that, because he essentially admitted to bargaining in bad faith.

But then, uh, what happened was he was selling what were known as the Southam newspapers, so Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, et cetera, uh, as well as the National Post, to Izzy Asper, who owned Canwest, which owned Global TV and a bunch of radio stations.

As a condition of that deal, Black needed to settle the labor dispute.

And Asper, so yeah, he was the leader of the liberals in Manitoba.

But one time after an episode they recorded, Smith, uh, asked him to stay behind.

And she was like, "So what, what are your political views?" And, and Brownsey said, uh, you know, "I'm pretty left-wing." And that was the last [laughs] time he was ever on the show, right? And so, uh, it did play a role in shifting the contours of political debate in Canada rightwards, undoubtedly.

I mean, obviously, it wasn't, she wasn't doing it single-handedly, but I think that was, uh, a major goal of Canwest, given, uh, the sort of liberalism espoused by Izzy Asper and his family.

But after he died, I mean, the Aspers just became Harper Conservatives, right? It was, it was more of a brand loyalty thing than, than anything.