Juno News - Danielle Smith BLASTS David Eby + Ottawa rebrands its deficit

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the first ever episode of The Fighter with Chris Simms. Yes, I've got my own show now

00:00:14.240 here on Juno News, backed up by True North Wire. Thank you so much for making this a part of your

00:00:20.500 day. If you have not done so yet, be sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel,

00:00:26.360 and share it with your friends. A little bit about me. So I'm the Alberta Director for the

00:00:32.480 Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I've been with the Taxpayers Federation for many years. And prior to

00:00:38.120 that, I was basically in talk radio and in journalism on Parliament Hill for around 20 years or so. I was

00:00:46.800 one of the founding members and reporters of Sun News Network. I was there when we were tearing the

00:00:52.580 plastic off of our brand new monitors. And I was there on the day we were shut down. So it means a

00:00:59.260 lot to me to have you, the audience, be part of this brand new show. So thank you so much for joining me

00:01:05.740 today. It's called The Fighter because in my many, many years of journalism and telling your stories

00:01:14.420 stories. For the hardworking, regular people out there, I would grow in frustration hearing them

00:01:21.980 talk about things like not being able to afford rent, having to borrow money off of friends to cover

00:01:29.320 a utility bill, having to skip meals, never having traveled. And these are working people. These are not

00:01:39.540 people sitting around doing nothing. These are people busting their backsides to try to make ends

00:01:45.120 meet. So I would hear that coming from folks I grew up with in rural British Columbia, rural Western

00:01:53.580 Canada. And then I would work on Parliament Hill. And I would hear journalists, typically, who were part of

00:02:02.640 the Parliamentary Press Gallery, just not get it. They did not understand how hard it was for everyday

00:02:11.540 working people in this country. I also noticed it amongst some politicians. For example, I discovered

00:02:20.080 one day that members of Parliament, not all of them, okay, but some members of Parliament were still

00:02:27.200 charging what is called a per diem, okay, which is a per day amount that they can charge the taxpayer

00:02:33.840 and get reimbursed for while they were in Ottawa working in the House of Commons. And they were charging

00:02:40.220 them a per diem for like their food, okay, for their meals. Two things. One, members of Parliament have

00:02:47.660 apartments with fridges and everything when they're working in Ottawa. But technically, they were outside of

00:02:54.420 their home, which is back in their riding. So they were technically charging this fee. What also really

00:03:01.520 frustrated me is that on most given days when the House of Commons was in session, there were several

00:03:08.480 hot, full meals provided to those members of Parliament all the time in the lobbies of the House

00:03:14.600 of Commons. Yet some of these MPs were still dinging taxpayers for their per diem. And it was that stark

00:03:22.320 contrast of talking to people who are just scratching out a living, okay, fighting to keep their head above

00:03:29.320 water. And this is years ago, before Trudeau and before carbon taxes and before inflation, okay. And

00:03:35.560 then on the flip side, seeing where all that money was going in Ottawa, and it became really clear that we

00:03:42.940 have to fight. So at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, one of our slogans is, we are fighting for taxpayers.

00:03:50.600 Darn right we are. So during this show, I want to try to bring you some compelling stories from people

00:03:58.260 telling their experiences. I want to be able to break some news with some news makers. And I want to do

00:04:05.760 some more in-depth analysis of the news of the day. Speaking of the news of the day, let's find out

00:04:11.160 what's going on. So Alberta Premier Daniel Smith, as of right now, is in Ottawa. She's going to a Canada

00:04:17.480 Strong and Free event tonight. And she met with Prime Minister Mark Carney briefly yesterday before

00:04:23.160 he jetted off to Washington DC. She just finished holding court, okay, at the Parliamentary Press

00:04:30.520 Gallery's interview room. So for folks who've been to Ottawa, right now actually the big pointy building,

00:04:36.260 Centre Block, with the clock tower in it, that's under massive renovation. Like people can't go in there

00:04:40.440 unless they're fixing it up. Pretty much everything is happening in what's called West Block, okay?

00:04:45.880 They've got a new House of Commons built over there. There's a big atrium, etc. And off to the side of

00:04:50.980 the House of Commons is a whole wired, mic'd up room that people go into and they stand in front of a

00:04:57.180 bunch of flags and they speak directly to the Parliamentary Press Gallery. So that is what Alberta

00:05:02.060 Premier Danielle Smith just finished doing. So she was talking about the nine bad laws, okay? So things like

00:05:09.000 the energy cap, things like the No More Pipelines ban, things like the tanker ban off the West Coast.

00:05:14.660 She was speaking about things like that. And she had a journalist ask her, okay, you are now trying

00:05:21.780 to spearhead a project through Mark Carney's brand new National Projects Office or whatever that's

00:05:27.880 called. But you're running into a big roadblock. And he's super tall in real life. I think BC Premier

00:05:34.140 David Eby is like 6'6 or 6'7 or something. You're running into a really tall roadblock here with David

00:05:41.420 Eby saying, you can't have tankers off of my pristine West Coast. And Premier Smith responded to that

00:05:48.520 question. Listen to this.

00:05:50.500 I think Premier Eby's comments are un-Canadian and they're unconstitutional. I think that the Supreme Court

00:05:56.500 has determined that the reason we have a country and have given trade and commerce power and control over

00:06:01.420 ports and inter-provincial infrastructure to the federal government is for exactly this reason,

00:06:06.820 so that a parochial Premier isn't able to block nation-building projects. So I think that the

00:06:11.940 courts have been pretty clear on that. And I would hope that Prime Minister Mark Carney would realize

00:06:17.620 it's his obligation to make sure that these kinds of projects get built.

00:06:21.960 Once again, that was Alberta Premier Daniel Smith just a few minutes ago, holding court with the

00:06:26.660 Parliamentary Press Gallery, responding to David Eby saying that, yeah, we can't have a tanker coming

00:06:32.780 in here off the Northwest Coast. Parochial Premier. That's interesting alliteration. Parochial means

00:06:38.500 narrow in vision or limited in scope. So we're not going to see the end of this back and forth,

00:06:44.620 I think, for a while. Now, what Premier Smith is trying to do here, obviously, is to get Premier David

00:06:52.400 Eby's boot off of Alberta's neck, and to get Ottawa's boot off of Alberta's neck. Because of course,

00:06:59.960 things like the ban on pipelines, okay, the energy cap on our production here in Alberta,

00:07:05.940 the ban on tankers off the West Coast is costing the Canadian economy and Albertans billions of

00:07:12.720 dollars. In fact, economists have estimated that over the last 10 years, so since Canadian,

00:07:18.920 former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected to power in 2015, they've estimated that

00:07:24.620 between stalled, strangled or cancelled natural resources projects, so this includes mines, okay,

00:07:32.160 based on all of those projects that have either failed or stalled, just not worked, that we have

00:07:38.480 lost out on around $600 billion. That's just through government action or inaction on not getting these

00:07:49.660 resource projects off the ground. That is a staggering amount of money. And it's so big that it's hard to

00:07:56.060 picture. So I'm going to try to help you out here. So $600 billion, plus what it's costing us to have

00:08:03.080 our production slash emissions cap. If you combine those two amounts, that would cover the costs of

00:08:10.260 the income taxes, the federal income taxes paid by every man, woman and child in Alberta, Saskatchewan,

00:08:19.140 and Manitoba for 10 years. That is how much money we are talking about here. That is why we're

00:08:26.980 really struggling with private investors walking away from Canada and not being confident enough

00:08:34.880 to invest here again. Just think of what that could do for roads and bridges and hospitals and schools

00:08:41.320 if we had that kind of money as taxpayers again. Keep this in mind. Nearly 50% of a working person's

00:08:51.380 money now goes to taxes, various levels of taxes, federal, provincial, and municipal, all those fees

00:08:57.520 and levies and stuff. Put another way, imagine your paycheck that arrives, say, every two weeks into your

00:09:03.560 bank account. Imagine that amount being almost double. What could you do with that kind of money?

00:09:10.620 Could you afford more nutritious food? Could you pay down some of your debts? Could you maybe save up for

00:09:16.400 a house? Could you afford a more reliable vehicle? That's how much money various levels of government

00:09:21.980 are taking from you. And that is why governance, what is happening in Ottawa with our spending and

00:09:29.600 our budgets directly affects you. Okay. So what's going to happen with this upcoming budget in November?

00:09:37.080 We're hearing all sorts of silly buzzwords about assets versus investment versus real spending.

00:09:43.560 And basically, it sounds like they're trying to hide the amount of debt. Is this going to work for

00:09:50.280 them? Let's find out. Joining me now is federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and

00:09:56.760 my good friend, Franco Teresano. Franco, you're holding down the fort there in Ottawa, also known as

00:10:02.540 Mordor. I got to pick your brain first right off the top because now I'm hearing this buzzword of

00:10:09.480 calling spending assets instead of capital. And it's one of those things where if you've ever

00:10:15.480 actually read a budget, it's like you're sitting there watching some kid who isn't really good at

00:10:19.580 artwork, but you're trying to play along with them. Doesn't this just come down to spending deficits,

00:10:26.060 debt? Isn't this about the map? Yeah, no, you're right, Chris. And I think you should be worried.

00:10:31.060 So folks, let me give you the high level what's going on. Okay, so you have the Carney, he's going

00:10:35.900 to change the way the government presents his budget, split one portion, call it operating

00:10:40.540 spending, split it the other portion, calling it capital, investment, assets, all those nice fun

00:10:46.520 little buzz terms that politicians throw around. But here's the big picture issue. Okay, Trudeau's

00:10:52.120 problem wasn't how he was presenting the budget. Trudeau's problem was that he was wasting your money

00:11:00.280 like crazy, and he doubled the debt, right? So Canadians don't need the federal government to

00:11:06.280 change how it presents the budget. Canadians need the federal government to stop wasting our money

00:11:12.420 like crazy, stop overspending and end their debt fueled spending spree, right? The real problem is

00:11:18.680 massive spending, massive debt. And the solution is to cut spending, right? Not change what you call

00:11:25.880 spending, cut it. Because facts don't care about your feelings. You know, it's one of those things,

00:11:32.140 going through school, math was always both humbling and empowering, humbling in the sense that it didn't

00:11:39.260 care if you were upset that you were getting the wrong answer. But once you got the right answer,

00:11:44.300 the light bulb went on. It's like, ah, nice, clean numbers. And this is where I'm kind of scratching my

00:11:49.880 head here, Franco, because Prime Minister Mark Carney didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

00:11:55.580 Like, he's got an economics degree from Oxford. Are you surprised that they're playing buzzword

00:12:00.900 games with this budget? Or maybe is it just that bad? And they're just desperately trying to paper it

00:12:05.820 over? Yeah, I don't know. But look, I remember them attacking the official opposition over slogans. But

00:12:12.360 you know, what is the biggest slogan of them all? Spend less, invest more, right? That's a slogan. Of

00:12:18.380 course, that's a slogan. But let's get more into the substantive issue here, okay? And look, this

00:12:22.960 could go two ways. Honestly, we'll have to wait to November 4th to see what happens in the actual

00:12:27.220 budget, right? So right now, it's really just speculation. You know, best case scenario, best

00:12:32.320 case scenario, the government will still be transparent with Canadians and provide the actual

00:12:38.580 deficit number, interest charge number, debt number, right? So best case scenario, nothing really

00:12:44.640 changes. The bottom line numbers are still there and available for Canadian taxpayers to see.

00:12:50.420 They just talk about, oh, you know, this spending is going here towards the bureaucracy. This spending

00:12:55.000 is going there towards roads. That's the best case scenario, Chris. Now, what I'm worried about

00:13:00.700 is that the Carney government is using this to be less transparent, less accountable to taxpayers,

00:13:07.640 right? Instead of showing how the overall debt is going up, I'm worried, and this could happen,

00:13:13.440 that they try to bury it and only talk about the day-to-day costs while, you know, ignoring how

00:13:21.280 infrastructure spending, corporate welfare, all that kind of stuff also balloons the debt. Because

00:13:26.600 at the end of the day, if the debt is going up, you did not balance the budget.

00:13:33.580 Won't that eventually show up in other documents, though? Like, wouldn't that show up in public

00:13:38.180 accounts? Wouldn't that show up in the fiscal year end, at least? Like, where would you have to go

00:13:42.800 hunting with your, I'm picturing with your miner's helmet on and your pickaxe in your hand? Where

00:13:47.580 would you have to go mining to find that hard number? Well, that's exactly a great point because

00:13:54.080 at the end of the day, the actual debt number, how much the government is borrowing and how that's

00:13:58.680 increasing year over year will come out, right? It will come out. So, at best, the government is

00:14:03.900 giving them, you know, a day, a week's cover because that number will go out. There's going to be

00:14:08.300 people like us at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation digging through it. There'll be some journalists

00:14:12.960 who'll be digging through it. Then there'll be some academics, some, I say, that will call the

00:14:17.680 government's bluff. But the problem where it reduces transparency is that it just makes it so much

00:14:22.940 harder for, like, day-to-day Canadians who have busy lives and have a big-time work schedule already,

00:14:28.980 right? Instead of going to one table, seeing the deficit, seeing the debt, seeing the interest charges,

00:14:32.980 it will take more time potentially for Canadians to get that kind of information,

00:14:38.200 right? So, that's what I'm really worried about. Like, who knows? Maybe they're just changing it

00:14:42.500 a little bit and you still get the debt number at the end. But the government can really duck

00:14:47.100 accountability and transparency by making these numbers and how our money's being spent a lot

00:14:52.080 harder to find. Okay. I actually don't know the answer to this question, which are always the

00:14:56.020 most fun ones. Does it matter if the government shifts its regular budget announcements to the

00:15:02.040 fall? Or is it better for us to have them in the spring? Like, does it matter in the world of money?

00:15:08.140 You know, I don't know. And I'm not exactly against the government producing its budget in

00:15:13.200 the fall. I mean, really what was going on in the Trudeau era, especially the late Trudeau era,

00:15:18.800 is they kept delaying it anyways, right? It kept getting later and later in the spring,

00:15:22.640 like even after the fiscal year actually started. So, you know, maybe you can make a case that like

00:15:28.380 bring it in the fall is better. At the end of the day, though, again, I don't want us to lose sight

00:15:34.400 of the real issue here, right? The real issue is not how the government presents the budget.

00:15:38.840 The real issue is not what time in the year does the government announce the budget. No,

00:15:43.280 the real issue is that these politicians and government bureaucrats are taking way too much of

00:15:48.260 your money. They're blowing way too much. And we have like a $1.3 trillion debt, folks.

00:15:53.780 That's the real issue. Okay. Think about it this way. Interest charges on the debt are costing each

00:15:59.080 Canadian $1,300 this year alone. $1,300. Okay. That's not money that's being used to pay down the

00:16:08.440 debt. No, that's not money going to services. That's not money to free up room for tax relief.

00:16:14.560 No, that's $1,300 that the government is taking from each and every Canadian just to pay interest

00:16:19.920 on the debt. Okay. That's the real issue here. The debt fueled spending spree.

00:16:25.500 Brutal. Is it still about a billion dollars a week? We're spending more than interest.

00:16:30.320 What more than a billion dollars a week? Yeah. More than a billion dollars a week going to pay

00:16:34.560 debt interest. Okay. Government wasting more money paying interest on the debt than what it sends to

00:16:40.320 the provinces and healthcare transfers. Chris, every single dollar you paid in federal sales

00:16:45.200 tax last year, because I know you're in Alberta, no PST, love me wild rose country, but every single

00:16:50.680 dollar that you paid in federal sales tax last year went to pay interest on the debt. That is the real

00:16:55.860 issue. Not the presentation of the budget. Not when the budget comes out. The fact that you are getting

00:17:01.880 soaked because the government is wasting too much of your money. All right. You're bang on about that.

00:17:07.220 There's something else you were bang on about, and I wanted to bring it up because it really had a

00:17:10.820 bee in my bonnet. There was a headline in the Globe and Mail the other day from a longtime reporter,

00:17:16.940 frankly. So here we are from Campbell Clark. Again, he's been in the game for a long time,

00:17:21.340 for at least 20 years. I think I met him 20 something years ago. So he says,

00:17:25.300 in Polyev's economics, it's pin the tail on the liberal donkey. And what he was getting at is he was at

00:17:31.480 the recent press conference that you might've seen where Mr. Polyev was at one of the

00:17:35.960 church food donation centers in Ottawa. And so he was being flanked by food bank donations and things

00:17:43.020 like that. And Pierre Polyev was talking about inflation. And the reporter from the Globe and

00:17:48.960 Mail tried to basically say, oh, well, inflation isn't happening anymore. Basically, why are you

00:17:55.160 still talking about this? All you were talking about before was the carbon taxes. Why are you still

00:17:59.660 talking about inflation? I'm paraphrasing, but it's frustrating, Franco, because frankly,

00:18:06.560 you were right. You were talking about this years ago when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired up the

00:18:12.840 printing presses and printed a whole bunch of money out of thin air. And you explained why inflation is

00:18:18.920 a problem. First off, can you please explain to our audience how printing money contributes to

00:18:25.460 inflation? The more dollars the government prints, the less that your dollars buy. Okay. That is the

00:18:33.580 inflation tax. And this happens when the government central bank, the Bank of Canada, prints a new

00:18:39.720 dollars right out of thin air, poof, with a click of a keypad to buy financial assets like government

00:18:45.640 debt, government bonds. Okay. That is the inflation tax. And why do prices rise? Well, look, the government

00:18:53.300 through the central bank can print new dollars right out of thin air, but you can't print up new farmland.

00:18:59.800 You cannot print up gasoline and you sure can't print groceries out of thin air. So what you had

00:19:05.800 was you had the government during the pandemic, having its printing press running on overdrive,

00:19:11.820 where the Bank of Canada at the heart of the pandemic printed up more than $300 billion and then

00:19:17.940 dumped it into an economy facing years of revolving government lockdowns. So the government created

00:19:25.060 the perfect storm for inflation, created up a bunch of new dollars out of thin air to finance Ottawa's

00:19:32.220 deficits, but then also shut down our economy. Okay. Too many dollars chasing too few goods. That's the

00:19:38.620 inflation tax and you're paying the price. Can you explain why prices have not gone down? Because I

00:19:46.200 often hear in the mainstream media, and you've explained this to me before, picking up Franco

00:19:50.200 from the airport is the best thing because you get an economics lesson for free. It's great.

00:19:53.740 So you've explained this to me before. Can you explain why prices have not gone down? If inflation

00:20:00.680 is slowing down, it's not gone, it's slowing down. Explain that.

00:20:06.600 Okay. So when you see a lot of the reporters and let's just say what it is, the mainstream media,

00:20:12.240 the legacy media, whatever you want to call it, when they report that inflation is cooling,

00:20:16.440 inflation is coming down. Well, it's kind of just a statistical trick because inflation is just year

00:20:22.640 over year price increases, right? So look after a 40 year high inflation in 2022, this statistic will

00:20:30.660 make it look like inflation is going down, but that's not what's happening, right? Prices or prices

00:20:35.340 are still going up. They're just not rising as fast as they were when inflation was a 40 year high.

00:20:42.240 So think about it this way, folks. You know, I love chips. I love beer. I love pizza after a good

00:20:47.920 night out. Let's say I put on a hundred pounds in one year. Okay. That's bad. I put on a hundred

00:20:52.920 pounds. Then I put on 50 pounds the year after that. Then I add three pounds the year after that.

00:21:00.060 So in three years I gained 153 pounds. I'm still gaining weight. Yes. I gained a little bit less

00:21:07.000 weight, but am I actually losing fat? No, I'm still putting on the extra fluff just a little bit

00:21:14.680 slower than before. That's what's happening now. So we're still in that bad inflation moment where

00:21:21.360 we're all the way out here. Okay. Putting on 153 pounds. We're just gaining weight slower. The problem

00:21:27.380 is, is we're still obese. So newbie question, because I don't have my economics degree.

00:21:35.140 Is there a way to sop up some of that money? Is there a way to reverse that damage and actually

00:21:41.140 have deflation or uninflation? I'm not sure what you call it and actually see prices go down. Have

00:21:46.900 we seen that before in the West? Yeah. Well, we, we have, um, look, there's first,

00:21:53.540 I would have to say there's, there's let's say four ways that the government causes inflation. Okay.

00:21:58.980 So number one is taxes, right? Like take half your paycheck folks, rip it in half,

00:22:05.300 because essentially that half is the tax man's, right? When you look at all the different taxes

00:22:09.300 that your family pays to all levels of government, it's almost 50% of your budget. The average Canadian

00:22:13.940 family's budget that's going to taxes. So, Hey, you want to make all areas of life more expensive.

00:22:19.140 Stop taking so much. All right. That's, that's a message to government. The second thing is that

00:22:23.700 you, then you also have taxes that are directly inflationary, like the carbon tax, carbon taxes,

00:22:28.900 make it more expensive for you to drive to work, more expensive for you to heat your home and more

00:22:32.820 expensive for you to fill your fridge, right? Remove those types of taxes. We're still paying carbon

00:22:38.020 taxes here in Canada. The third way is the inflation tax, right? Uh, where the central bank prints

00:22:43.620 up new dollars at a thin air, a largely to finance massive deficits in Ottawa. So one thing that

00:22:49.940 these politicians can do is stop running these massive deficits, right? Cut spending. And finally

00:22:57.540 is I said too many dollars chasing too few goods, right? So you need less new dollars,

00:23:03.220 less new fiat dollars, and you need more of the stuff that money buys. So that means government's

00:23:08.420 getting out of the way, Ottawa getting out of the way and allowing job creators to actually

00:23:13.220 invest in and build these major natural, uh, natural resource projects.

00:23:18.500 So that would actually help. So I have to ask you, are you confident that this can happen? Because I

00:23:24.260 must say, um, every time I go out shopping now, I'm still noticing it like prices. Are they just

00:23:29.460 are high prices here to stay, or can we chip away at this with some smart governing?

00:23:34.420 Well, we can, uh, whether or not we will, I don't know. Right. And again, I'll go back to November 4th.

00:23:39.780 That's the thing I'm looking at is the budget because you hear some people talking about,

00:23:43.300 oh, you know, the Carney government spending review. They're going to look at this. They're

00:23:46.740 going to look at that. But like, until I actually see the numbers where there's actual spending going

00:23:52.180 down, then the budgeting is a failure, right? Like, look, what's the old saying? Like what? Fool me

00:23:58.020 one shame on you. Well, fool me what 27 times. Then it's probably shame on me, right? We've heard

00:24:04.820 this government, especially the Trudeau government year after year, after year, say they're looking

00:24:09.300 for savings saying they're doing a spending review. And then what happens? Well, they spend billions

00:24:14.260 of dollars more. Hey, pro tip for the politicians watching. If you're increasing spending by billions

00:24:20.180 of dollars every single year, you're saving money wrong. Awesome. Lastly, before I let you go here,

00:24:26.980 Franco, can you point to a couple of things that the government could cut tomorrow? Like walking

00:24:33.140 fresh out of the building, he's standing on Wellington, he's looking around.

00:24:37.860 What could he cut tomorrow that would save us money? Well, I don't know the first thing about

00:24:42.500 farming, but I'm pretty sure my buddies back in Brooks know how to build a barn for a lot less than

00:24:47.060 8 million bucks. So, Hey, maybe there, maybe don't spend 8 million bucks building a barn on

00:24:51.540 the governor general's estate, right? There's so many crazy examples of silly ways that the government

00:24:56.260 spending a hundred grand to study the birth life and death of a grocery cart. Crazy, right? Maybe

00:25:03.460 just call bubbles from trailer park boys, offer them a stick of pepperoni. And there you go. But let's

00:25:08.980 look at the big, the big items, right? Number one, corporate welfare. Okay. Corporate welfare, uh,

00:25:14.340 cost taxpayers about $11 billion a year. So they take your money, then they give it to select

00:25:19.940 multinational corporations. Well, let's do the math on that. It means corporate welfare costs your

00:25:25.380 family of four $1,100 a year, cut it, get rid of it. And finally, uh, the big other big area here is

00:25:32.660 the bureaucracy, right? The government added about a hundred thousand extra federal paper pushers

00:25:38.820 and ballooned the cost of the bureaucracy 77% since 2016.

00:25:44.020 Astonishing. Franco Terrazzano, federal director for the Canadian taxpayers federation. Thank you so

00:25:50.660 much for joining us on the show. Hey, thanks, Chris. This was fun.

00:25:54.100 You bet. Once again, that was Franco Terrazzano. You can check out a lot of his articles where he talks

00:25:59.780 about the stuff at length. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he's got his degree in economics and he

00:26:04.820 explains stuff very thoroughly. So if you head on over to our website, taxpayer.com, you can search

00:26:11.300 through his name and you can read a whole bunch of his analysis on this stuff. Okay. We're going to

00:26:16.100 shift gears here to Alberta and we have got one of the biggest government union strikes and fights going

00:26:23.140 on that we have seen in a generation. The Alberta teachers union is on strike. It's on strike for the

00:26:29.620 first time in 23 years. Now, here's the thing. One, even if you don't live in Alberta, you should

00:26:37.780 still pay attention to this because once one big government union goes on strike, chances are another

00:26:43.700 big government union in another province thinks that that's a smart thing to do. And it's definitely

00:26:48.340 not a good thing for taxpayers. The other element here in Alberta is you'd think that with a deal

00:26:54.820 rejection vote of 89.5% and the teachers going on strike for the first time in 23 years, that the

00:27:05.220 deal that was offered by Alberta Premier Daniel Smith must have been terrible and coming from her

00:27:10.020 government, it must have been terrible, but that's not true. The Daniel Smith government was offering

00:27:15.460 teachers more money. They were offering a pay increase of 12% over four years. So 3% per year.

00:27:22.740 They had also offered to hire 3000 brand new teachers plus 1500 new classroom assistants.

00:27:32.420 So this is where people are left scratching their heads, where this would have been,

00:27:37.140 according to Alberta Premier Daniel Smith, the highest wage increase offered in years. And if they had

00:27:45.620 accepted this deal, it would have made Alberta teachers the highest paid in Western Canada.

00:27:52.740 So now we're hearing from teachers saying things like, oh, well, it's not about the money.

00:27:57.300 Okay, well, you rejected the deal by almost 90%. So I think this gets down to a bigger question.

00:28:03.860 What is going on? How can we dive in to our education systems and fix it so that students are getting very

00:28:14.180 good outcomes? They love learning and they like being able to go to school and teachers are getting

00:28:19.780 good results without throwing more money at the problem. How do we fix this smarter? Let's find out.

00:28:30.100 Joining me now is my very good friend and the associate director of education policy at the

00:28:35.540 Fraser Institute, Paige McPherson, and one of my old Sun News Network colleagues. So I'm super happy to

00:28:40.900 have you on the first show. Yeah. Thanks so much, Chris. I'm so happy to be here too.

00:28:44.580 And we actually have something super important to talk about. Usually Paige and I are trying to fix

00:28:49.620 the world, but let's fix the world of education here in Alberta in particular. So you've probably

00:28:55.140 been following the play by play here, Paige. The story goes that the Alberta teachers rejected a deal

00:29:01.780 offer by close to 90% saying no, that would have otherwise made them the highest paid teachers in

00:29:08.980 Western Canada. So, and the offer was substantial and generous. So a lot of people are scratching

00:29:15.780 their heads saying, what on earth is going on here? Now, to be fair, we are hearing from some teachers

00:29:21.460 saying, it's not about the money. It's about things like classroom complexity and things are too

00:29:26.900 complicated in their classrooms. And we're also hearing a lot of politics. There's plenty of

00:29:32.260 agitators within the Alberta teachers union that don't like Premier Smith. So where do we go from here?

00:29:38.980 How can we actually change and fix how we do school in Canada that would save us money?

00:29:45.540 Right. So one thing that it's really important to keep in mind whenever we have, especially the context of

00:29:51.780 a teacher strike is that the most important stakeholder in education are the students, right?

00:29:57.380 So ensuring that we have a system that prioritizes student achievement, academic success, and something

00:30:06.580 that ideally meets the needs, the unique needs of every student in some way. So as you know, you said,

00:30:13.620 we can get a system where students actually enjoy going to school and their outcomes are good. That

00:30:18.980 needs to underpin everything and be the priority. So with that in mind, maybe we can first talk about

00:30:24.820 what exactly do they mean by classroom complexity? Because I do think this is a really significant

00:30:30.500 issue. It's not unique to Alberta. But it is something that is very real and is a very legitimate

00:30:36.740 concern that teachers have. So I'll quote the union here, the teachers union, the Alberta Teachers

00:30:41.940 Association, which pulls their their members, teachers on some of these issues. 93% of teachers

00:30:48.420 report encountering some form of aggression or violence at school, most often from students. This

00:30:53.860 is in Alberta. And additionally, 85% of unionized teachers are dealing with an increase in cognitive,

00:31:01.060 social, emotional, and behavioral issues in their classroom. So what this means is that we've got a

00:31:06.340 real discipline issue in schools, in government public schools in Alberta, and also that the classroom is

00:31:13.220 full of a very diverse range of kids that have a diverse range of needs. So those might be some of

00:31:19.220 those behavioral problems, it might be severe learning disabilities, it might be some form of the autism

00:31:26.180 spectrum disorder, it might be a whole range of things that are making it very challenging to teach

00:31:32.900 this wide range of kids in a classroom. Recall a few years ago, many years ago now, when we were on Sun

00:31:39.060 News Network together, it made headlines that there was a teacher in an Alberta government public school,

00:31:44.980 actually, that refused to not give an F on an assignment refused to not fail a student. I don't

00:31:51.460 know if that if you remember this happening. But we've moved so far beyond that now where kids are

00:31:57.220 essentially and this is, again, not unique to Alberta, this is right across the country, they're really

00:32:01.620 passed through. And what that means is that a lot of kids are really not meeting those academic outcomes

00:32:06.020 that they should be. And yet they're advancing to the next grade. And that adds another level of

00:32:11.380 complexity for teachers. On top of that, in 2020, one quarter of the students in Edmonton government

00:32:19.060 public schools were just learning English were English language learners. And think about since 2020,

00:32:26.180 how immigration to Canada and Alberta specifically has really exploded since then. So you can imagine how

00:32:32.340 many students in the class are also just learning the language. And what that means is that you have

00:32:38.100 a very in the words of you know, the current sort of edu babble, a complex classroom, you have a lot of

00:32:45.780 different kids. And so that is a challenge, a legitimate challenge for teachers. Now, the issue is that

00:32:52.660 paying teachers more, pouring ever more money into the government public school system, and even reducing

00:32:59.380 class size is unlikely to solve that issue of comp, like the complex classrooms, that really is the

00:33:05.540 root issue here. And that's where you know, you get to a real impasse in terms of what the current sort

00:33:11.300 of rhetoric is around for solutions, and what those solutions might actually be. And I can talk a little

00:33:16.740 bit more about why those things are probably not going to solve the problem, and what might solve the

00:33:21.140 problem. But I think that's just a critical, you know, foundational point of understanding is that

00:33:25.620 classroom complexity. Okay, just very quickly on the numbers, I've gone back through them several years,

00:33:31.860 spending on education continues to go up. So if you're hearing from the Alberta Teachers Union

00:33:37.140 bosses who are saying, Oh, Alberta Premier Daniel Smith is slashing funding to education. That's not

00:33:42.420 true. Like anybody can go to the budget, anybody can look it up under the line item, just straight up

00:33:47.460 capital E education, not advanced education. And they can see that number is steadily increasing year

00:33:52.900 over year over year over year. And I really appreciate your frankness and your candor on this.

00:33:57.220 Because I am frankly hearing privately from teachers who are like, Hey, we love your show,

00:34:04.020 we follow things really closely, or even, you know, we're supporters of the Taxpayers Federation.

00:34:09.540 But this is what's happening in classroom. Teachers seem hesitant to voice this directly. Are they

00:34:18.260 worried about being seen as mean or uncaring or something towards kids who have special needs,

00:34:23.780 who have serious behavioural issues, who perhaps can't speak English, and so it's really slowing them

00:34:29.620 down and being able to teach their kids? Is there a hesitancy coming from teachers to just spit it out and

00:34:35.540 say what's exactly wrong? I, you know, I think that obviously, I can't speak for teachers. But I think

00:34:41.540 there is a hesitancy here where you've got a lot of stakeholders in this issue that care a lot about

00:34:46.580 how kids are doing parents, other students themselves, teachers, administrators, there's

00:34:53.780 people who care a lot, they want all students to get a good education. And that has to include students

00:35:00.020 that have that wide range of needs, even if the student is, you know, throwing desks across the

00:35:04.980 across the classroom, because they have these severe behavioural issues that student deserves an education

00:35:09.540 as well. The challenges that you've got in government public schools, a one size fits all

00:35:16.340 model. And I'll just add as well that Alberta is also grappling with the challenge of exploding

00:35:21.620 enrolment. Part of that is the immigration piece. And part of that is just that Alberta is a young

00:35:26.820 province in terms of demographics. And so you do have this increasing enrolment in government public

00:35:32.580 schools. And so while you're absolutely right that the nominal spending is going up, they are spending more

00:35:38.820 year over year on education, you do have the increasing enrolment to go with that. And so that's

00:35:46.740 creating a challenge as well. The question is, if you're going to find your solutions in government

00:35:52.660 public schools, you know, with only unionized teachers, is government moving fast enough? Are

00:35:58.180 they delivering solutions? Is the solution more one size fits all classroom and then pouring more resources

00:36:05.220 into that classroom? I would say that, you know, the evidence just shows that it's probably not going

00:36:10.260 to solve that problem of classroom complexity. How do we fix this? You and I talk a lot about

00:36:16.740 charter schools. It was one of my favourite conversations when I was planning to move to

00:36:20.180 Alberta because, you know, we homeschooled our kids. We were very careful with what schools we were trying

00:36:25.540 to put them into. But frankly, there wasn't a lot of school choice where we were living rurally in

00:36:30.020 British Columbia. And then I was thrilled to move to Alberta where there is more choice in the sense

00:36:34.900 between regular public and the Catholic system. And there's so many charter schools here. Can you

00:36:40.820 explain for the rest of Canada or even some people in Alberta who don't know how the charter school

00:36:47.300 system works in Alberta? How does funding follow the student and how does that work for a lot of

00:36:53.620 families? Sure. So essentially what the government does is they take a percentage of the per student

00:36:59.460 funding equivalent that would be going to their local government public school if a child was to attend

00:37:04.740 that school. And instead they can redirect that to either an independent school at a percentage,

00:37:11.300 so not the full amount that would have gone if they would have gone to a government public school,

00:37:14.740 but a percentage of that up to 70%. Or they can direct it to a charter school, which again is

00:37:22.100 typically or traditionally has been a lower cost option, at least for the taxpayer for government,

00:37:27.940 but is fully funded for parents in terms of tuition. So parents do not pay any upfront tuition to go to

00:37:33.940 this type of a charter school. And then there is a little bit of funding made available for homeschool

00:37:38.100 families as well in Alberta. And so essentially what it means this system of school choice that

00:37:42.900 exists in Alberta, and it's although charter schools in particular are unique to Alberta,

00:37:47.220 school choice is not unique. Five out of 10 provinces do have a similar system of basically a portion of

00:37:54.980 parents tax dollars following their child to the school of their choice. But what's unique about Alberta

00:38:01.460 is those the charter schools. So charter schools are essentially their schools that are autonomous,

00:38:06.420 they're not operated by a government public school board, they do not have to hire unionized teachers

00:38:12.100 in Alberta. But they do have to teach the curriculum, they are nonprofit, they are non religious schools,

00:38:19.220 but they have a unique charter, a unique reason for operating. And essentially, if they have a reason that

00:38:27.220 is different than what the local government public school offers, a group of educators, parents,

00:38:33.460 teachers within a community can start up their own school, a charter school. And there's lots of

00:38:38.820 interesting examples of this in Alberta, they've got STEM charter schools, classical charter schools,

00:38:44.580 you've got schools that specifically are targeted toward disadvantaged populations as students who've

00:38:50.420 experienced trauma, there's indigenous culture focused charter schools, there's English second language

00:38:56.340 charter schools, there's rural stewardship charter schools, which are in rural communities where you

00:39:01.940 might have a shrinking population in government public schools. And they're really celebrating that

00:39:06.500 that rural life and making that part of their education. So it's a really unique model in that

00:39:11.300 there's, there's very low barrier to entry for families, because there's no tuition, and it can be

00:39:17.940 catered. And this is where I think it kind of, you know, circles back to what we were talking about in terms of

00:39:22.260 the complex needs in a classroom, you've got different types of kids and different types of learners,

00:39:27.060 you're trying to cram them all into one size fits all classrooms, and it's really not working well,

00:39:31.460 it's a real challenge for teachers. And it's a challenge for other students in the classroom as

00:39:36.260 well and parents. So if you can have a model that instead celebrates those learners and creates

00:39:42.900 environments that are better for them, whether that's through an independent school model, or through

00:39:47.220 a charter school, then perhaps you're solving some of these problems by by empowering families to make

00:39:54.420 those choices.

00:39:55.220 Do you think that that is something the Alberta government would be able to sell to the average

00:40:02.820 person? Like, do you think the average person understands exactly what you just described there, which

00:40:07.620 sounds like a pretty smart way to solve some of these problems, frankly? Do you think that that will be

00:40:14.500 understood by the average person in Alberta enough for the government to have the courage to do

00:40:19.700 something that bold? Well, the vast majority of students in Alberta still do attend government

00:40:25.940 public schools. And one thing that's been unique and interesting and studied about the school choice

00:40:31.940 in Alberta is that it particularly in Edmonton, where research showed that it actually improved the

00:40:36.820 results of the government public schools by having this level of choice. So everybody kind of, you know,

00:40:41.780 the rising tide lifts all boats, everybody really benefited from this. So that's a great option

00:40:46.900 for a lot of families. But the charter school option or the independent school option is just

00:40:53.140 not made available to every family. So typically, at an independent school, you still need to pay some

00:40:57.860 level of tuition as a parent. And at a charter school, I mean, their waitlist, you hear from charter

00:41:02.900 schools, they say it, you know, publicly all the time that their waitlists far exceed what they can

00:41:08.820 provide, and they'd love to expand. But there are these barriers that are in place, preventing them

00:41:13.700 from doing so. So I think there are already quite a lot of people in the public who would like to be

00:41:18.580 able to take advantage of these options. And so the question is, you know, policy wise, if the government

00:41:24.580 wanted to make it easier to expand charter schools, you know, listen to the leaders that are that are

00:41:30.500 running these charter schools now and make it a more accessible option. If they wanted to do more to make

00:41:35.380 independent schools a more viable option, there are jurisdictions like for example, in Australia,

00:41:40.340 where they target low income, family funding for independent school tuition. So based on your

00:41:47.060 postal code, you're actually have a higher level of funding to attend an independent school.

00:41:51.460 And there's lots of families in Alberta that would be able to benefit from something like that.

00:41:55.300 But they can't even with the existing subsidy, the existing amount of their tax dollars that are

00:42:00.020 following their child to the school of their choice, they still aren't able to make that a reality for

00:42:03.940 their family. So helping more families do that could alleviate some of the pressure on the

00:42:09.380 government public school classrooms. And especially if those schools, I think were targeted towards

00:42:15.940 those diverse learners, there are that already exists in Alberta, there are lots of special needs,

00:42:21.700 private schools that exist and charter schools that I said, you know, do target disadvantaged kids,

00:42:26.020 but there's a lot more opportunity there. So in, you know, from I can't really comment on the

00:42:30.740 politics. But it's also about doing what's right, and doing what will actually work and what is

00:42:35.460 backed by evidence. Because we know that in provinces where there is a higher level of per

00:42:41.300 student funding, in government public schools, the results are not better. Alberta is outperforming

00:42:47.060 those provinces. So that's not the answer. We also know that smaller class, the research on smaller

00:42:52.420 class sizes, there's a small benefit in the early grades, but in beyond the very early grades,

00:42:58.020 there's, there's really no measurable impact in terms of how students perform improved outcomes.

00:43:04.260 So some of these solutions, they really, they don't solve the problem. So perhaps government

00:43:10.980 getting out of the way, and allowing some of these community driven solutions to take place,

00:43:17.460 that really might be the answer.

00:43:19.140 So just quickly to recap on what you just pointed out there about class size, we hear a lot about class

00:43:24.180 size. But when you dovetail that back to what we started this conversation about, is if you're a

00:43:28.660 teacher, and you're dealing with maybe, you know, six or eight kids who just can't, you know, keep up,

00:43:35.140 and like, they're constantly trying to have to deal with behavioral issues, I can see, frankly, that that

00:43:40.500 classroom size might be an issue. Are they using the term classroom size as a way of just trying to

00:43:46.740 deal with this problem, but not actually stay it out loud? My point is, is if you've got like a really

00:43:52.500 good math class, and everybody's keeping up, I don't think it would really matter at the high

00:43:56.980 school level, if there's 40 kids in there, if they're all just keeping up and able to do that.

00:44:01.380 I think the issue probably gets to be when you have a whole bunch of students that do have

00:44:06.500 really challenging needs. I think that's where you're running into the classroom complexity,

00:44:11.700 combined with big class sizes, right?

00:44:14.020 That's right. So it's just you're not getting to the root issue. I can totally understand how having

00:44:18.980 a smaller class, if your class has all of these challenges in it, it would be easier to stay afloat.

00:44:25.620 But in terms, but it doesn't address the root issue. We know from the research that some of the

00:44:29.700 highest performers on the Program for International Student Assessment, PISA tests, are, they have some

00:44:36.180 of the largest class sizes. So Singapore, South Korea, they are outperforming Canada, they have larger

00:44:42.900 class sizes than Canada, on average, that that doesn't solve the problem. And again, in terms of the

00:44:48.500 research on, you know, Western jurisdictions, where you've got this, there are the small benefits in

00:44:55.380 the earlier grades. But once you get beyond that, you're really just not seeing the benefit in terms

00:45:00.660 of student achievement, from reducing those class sizes. However, it's an extremely costly

00:45:07.140 intervention to reduce class sizes is a very expensive thing to do. So the question then, if you're

00:45:12.580 the government, where can I spend my money best, that's a very costly intervention. The other thing

00:45:17.380 that I would say, because where I live in Nova Scotia, there are more strictly enforced class

00:45:24.100 caps than in Alberta. Now we don't have the same enrollment challenges that Alberta has with that

00:45:28.420 growing enrollment. But just one thing that I'll note is that within embedded into the policy on these

00:45:35.300 strictly enforced class caps in Nova Scotia, is the ability to create more split classes. So a two,

00:45:42.900 three split, three, four split, whatever it might be. Tell me that doesn't add to classroom complexity,

00:45:48.500 because you're now having to teach two different curricula to two different sets of learners,

00:45:53.780 and the students are only able to learn their grade level curriculum, half the time.

00:45:59.220 Yeah. So that's not to say, of course, there's split classes everywhere. But this is just sort of the

00:46:07.140 pressure release valve that sort of built into the class caps in Nova Scotia. So all of that is just to say

00:46:11.620 that these policies, they're not a silver bullet for improving education. They're really not rooted

00:46:17.060 in evidence, but also they have unintended consequences that need to be considered.

00:46:23.060 Paige McPherson, I wanted to get your quick thoughts, shifting gears from education as we say goodbye

00:46:28.260 for this show. Barry Weiss, who we're both big fans of, and I know you listen to her, she of course was

00:46:34.980 with the Free Press for a long time. And I'm bringing this up for a very good reason, because we're here on

00:46:39.540 Juno News, we were together on Sun News Network, we think that independent free press journalism is

00:46:44.900 vital, right, if I can speak for myself, here in Canada. I just wanted to get your quick thoughts

00:46:50.020 on her moving over to CBS. Is this giving you some hope that there's going to be stronger,

00:46:55.060 more independent free press? Well, one thing that I think that it really shows is that there is that

00:47:01.140 demand for that sort of independent, thoughtful journalism, something that I really appreciate about the

00:47:08.660 free press is that they do some of these, you know, deep dives in the age of social media, where you

00:47:14.340 see these really quick headlines. I think they're giving often controversial, but really thoughtful

00:47:20.980 analysis on very important issues of the day. And so I, the fact that she is, you know, that there's

00:47:28.660 this deal happening with CBS. It's, it, to me, it just shows that, wow, there is clearly the demand for that

00:47:36.580 independent minded journalism out there. We'll have to see how it goes with, like, I'm really hoping

00:47:42.660 that the quality remains with the free press, because I do really appreciate that outlet.

00:47:47.540 But, but I think it is, you know, here in Canada, it's a bit of a, perhaps a tale for us to, to learn

00:47:54.020 from, because, okay, clearly this, this, this demand for this independent, thoughtful journalism exists.

00:48:00.420 And it's, it's not fringe, it's actually quite mainstream.

00:48:03.140 Let's mainstream a free press again. Thank you so much, Paige McPherson. She is the Associate

00:48:09.540 Director of Education Policy at the Fraser Institute.

00:48:12.580 Thank you.

00:48:13.700 Folks, we mean it. If we can mainstream a free press again, we are all going to be better. Because,

00:48:21.540 frankly, I think the latest number that I saw was more than 60% of Canadians now think that journalists

00:48:29.220 are deliberately trying to mislead them with statements they know to be false.

00:48:34.260 That means that there is next to no trust left in mainstream journalism. And when that happens,

00:48:40.340 things start having the wheels fall off. It means so much to us that you watch this show. I hope you

00:48:46.900 like this brand new show here, The Fighter with Chris Sims on Juneau News. Be sure to leave a comment

00:48:53.140 underneath this video. And if you haven't done so yet, head on over to Juneau News and subscribe

00:48:59.940 because that is the way that we are able to fight for you.

Juno News - October 08, 2025

Danielle Smith BLASTS David Eby + Ottawa rebrands its deficit

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