If you listen to one video today... make it this one... Truth
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
135.48476
Summary
Melanie in Saskatchewan has a message for the Elbows up crowd, and those applauding Mark Kearney. I am a Canadian paying for a country that doesn t include me. I live in the part of the country your map forgets, about 2,600 kilometers from the nearest stop on your proposed $90B high-speed train, I am an overtaxed, underserved Canadian. I heat my home with rising costs, I ve got to pay my heating bill at almost $2 a liter, I fill my vehicle at nearly $2 per liter, depending on the day and my luck. I watch a country with 163 billion barrels of oil behave like it s on a meager allowance, and you want me to pay for a train I will never use? How thoughtful.
Transcript
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I hope you're having a great weekend just after 8 o'clock.
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but I read something today that I think you need to hear.
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read somebody's complete post for a video but here's the thing this is on x a lot of you are
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not on x you may never hear the words i'm about to say what i'm about to say from melanie in
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saskatchewan is extraordinary you need to hear these words you need to listen until the end
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now i wouldn't even know about this if small dead animals wasn't my favorite website and this was
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posted today, Don't Believe Carnival Kearney, Melanie in Saskatchewan has an important message
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to share with the Elbows Up crowd. So please bear with me, listen until the end, and hear what Melanie
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has to say. To Mark Kearney and those applauding him, I am a Canadian paying for a country that
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doesn't include me. I live in the part of the country your map forgets, about 2,600 kilometers
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from the nearest stop on your proposed $90 billion train,
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I watch a country with 163 billion barrels of oil
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And you want me to pay for a train I will never use?
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I am a hard-working, falling-behind-Canadian funding infrastructure I will never touch.
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It runs roughly 800 to 900 kilometers, depending on how creatively it detours around reality from Toronto to Quebec City.
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Seven stops, all neatly contained within Ontario and Quebec.
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Top speed, 300 kilometers an hour, national reach.
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I am a Canadian treated like a revenue stream invited only by invoice roughly 90 billion dollars
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about eight thousand dollars per household for a ticket I will never hold from where I sit in
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Saskatchewan your high-speed rail corridor might as well be interstellar travel two thousand plus
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kilometers away circling the station and still billing me I'm a Canadian bereft of a stop on
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this train, close enough to fund it, far enough to never use it. I am an overextended nickel and
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dime Canadian. I am fixing my own road access, paying more for groceries, driving farther for
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basic services, and now funding new infrastructure for people who already have airports, highways,
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and existing rail. At this point, I would settle for a train that delivers affordable groceries.
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No need for 300 kilometers an hour, just cost-saving reliability.
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I am a Canadian squeezed by government-made inflation,
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where every errand costs more than it did last week,
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and every explanation from you sounds rehearsed.
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I am a Canadian quietly recalculating the future,
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trying not to downgrade my retirement to a leaky camper on wheels.
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While the country accumulates debt it cannot repay,
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Not my land, not this time, but close enough to understand the mechanism.
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Because an 800 plus kilometer corridor does not meander politely.
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It cuts straight, fast, with purpose, through farmland, through properties, through communities.
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I am a watchful Canadian taking note of precedent, survey stakes, expropriation powers, public interest to be explained after.
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and tomorrow it will be called necessary for something larger, something urgent,
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something climate-related, something that cannot wait.
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I am a wary Canadian, noticing how easily necessity is declared to match your agenda,
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and how quickly my rights become flexible once it is declared.
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I am an observant Canadian with a long memory for names,
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and somehow the same SNC-Lavalin lineage Canadians were told to forget is back,
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rebranded as Atkins Realis, positioning itself for one of the largest public contracts
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in Canadian history. A remarkable comeback, truly. No apology tour, just a new logo and
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a larger taxpayer-subsidized opportunity. Seems history doesn't repeat. It follows a predictable
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pattern. I am an unimpressed Canadian watching familiar lab scam players return under reimagined
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branding. The script is the same, only the cover has changed. I am an exasperated Canadian, you
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include it in your sales pitch. I am told it will create 50,000 jobs. I am told it will add 35
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billion dollars to GDP, and I'm sure it will, in the corridor where the stations are, where the
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density is, where the benefit is. I am a shunned Canadian, excluded from the outcome, included in
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all the arithmetic, excluded from all the access. I am a cynical Canadian, being told this is
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nation-building, though the nation appears to exist along a very specific set of coordinates.
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I am a depleted Canadian who reads grocery receipts like an audit, choreographs fuel stops
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around paydays, not plans, measures distance and cost, not kilometers. I am an overburdened,
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last-in-line Canadian, essential when it is time to pay, optional when it is time to benefit.
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I am an impoverished Canadian whose citizenship now resembles a pre-authorized debit agreement.
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The withdrawals are national. The benefits are regional. I am an exhausted,
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overlooked Canadian. You're not building this for me or my family. You're just sending me the bill,
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signed your most reluctantly reliable revenue stream,
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