Juno News - Life in Canada keeps getting harder

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:16.220 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:24.380 Welcome and happy Tuesday to you all.

00:01:27.340 Do not adjust your sets.

00:01:28.880 Yes, my name is Chris Sims. I'm the CEO of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and it's an honor to be for Andrew Lawton.

00:01:38.720 Andrew is away on a secret assignment at an undisputed session. I'm sure he'll be able to update you on that sometime next week.

00:01:47.140 But for now and for the next few days, I'm going to be your host of the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:01:52.120 But please don't adjust your set. Don't turn away because we have some excellent shows lined up for you.

00:01:57.360 What I'm going to be focusing on over the next few days are government overreach into things like energy, right?

00:02:05.320 Why is it costing you so much to fuel up your car, to heat your home, to produce your goods, to raise your crops or food?

00:02:14.880 That sort of a question.

00:02:16.760 Why is the government overreaching into things like private property?

00:02:20.320 So we're going to get an update tomorrow on the firearms seizure.

00:02:24.240 A lot of people refer to it as the buyback program, but as a firearms owner, a legal

00:02:29.700 and registered firearms owner, I take issue with that because I did not buy my shotgun

00:02:34.900 from the government, so it is not a buyback program.

00:02:38.100 We're going to touch on that tomorrow.

00:02:39.840 And I also eventually this week wanted to get into what I would often refer to as the

00:02:44.940 government censorship complex, okay?

00:02:48.580 So what I mean by that is two things.

00:02:51.000 if you can picture it like two sides of a vice grip. On one side, the Trudeau government is

00:02:56.740 passing laws by like C11 and C63, which will curb your expression, which will have government

00:03:05.700 bureaucrats monitoring what you can see, hear, share, and say online in a forum like this,

00:03:14.340 for example. And on the other side of this weird vice grip that the Trudeau government is cranking

00:03:20.060 up really fast, is the government funding of media. Journalists should not be paid by the

00:03:26.640 government, okay? It doesn't matter if they come at this from a left-wing perspective or a right-wing

00:03:32.140 perspective, or they try to shoot straight down the middle and be purely objective. The government

00:03:37.100 shouldn't be paying journalists, and journalists should not be accepting money from the government.

00:03:41.380 So I think if we focus on those things, right, government intrusion into energy costs,

00:03:46.120 government intrusion into private property and the government overreach when it comes to things like

00:03:50.720 censorship, we're going to have a really fun week. Now, I'm at the Taxpayers Federation. So the

00:03:56.160 Taxpayers Federation, for folks who may not be familiar with its history, we were started way

00:04:01.340 back in 1990. Okay, I know it's kind of hard for some folks to imagine. Some of our lead spokespeople

00:04:08.460 weren't even born then. But back in 1990, for the record, I was in junior high, new kids on the

00:04:15.040 block were topping the charts. There was no such thing as the internet except for in some

00:04:19.840 U.S. government databases. And we had fax machines. So back then, the Taxpayers Federation started as

00:04:28.200 a merger between the ratepayers of Alberta and the ratepayers of Saskatchewan. Largely, they were

00:04:35.340 angry at the GST, which was, of course, a huge sales tax which was imposed across Canada at 7%.

00:04:42.920 So that is a bit of our history. What we focus on, though, is lower taxes, less waste, and more

00:04:50.640 accountable government. If you have those three things, your life is generally going to be better

00:04:57.100 because it means you're going to have smaller government that is going to be less intrusive. 1.00

00:05:01.360 You're going to have government that doesn't waste your money on stupid things like sex toy 1.00

00:05:06.940 shows in Germany. Yes, we famously paid for something like that. And we know that politicians 1.00

00:05:13.020 will be held to a higher level of accountability, okay? So that is really our mission. And if I

00:05:18.860 still can't sell you on why something like the Taxpayers Federation is important, if it sounds

00:05:23.740 like taxes are boring, do a little thought process. If it's safe to do so, close your eyes, okay?

00:05:31.580 Keep them closed. Picture your salary almost doubling, like your take-home pay. Picture it

00:05:38.940 almost doubling. What could you do with that kind of money? Really? Could you save for a down payment

00:05:46.940 for a house that right now is out of reach? Could you maybe pay down your mortgage faster if you

00:05:53.020 already are fortunate enough to own a house? Could you put your child through trade school or

00:05:58.540 university could you take that trip to europe that you've never been able to afford what could you do

00:06:05.340 with your salary being doubled you know private schools charter schools something for your kids

00:06:12.380 that's how much money the government is taking from you yeah close to 50 so mid 40 right now

00:06:20.780 4-0, mid 40% right now, is being taken from you by various levels of government. So folks at the

00:06:28.900 Fraser Institute crunch these numbers every year. You can go check out their excellent report for

00:06:33.040 this year. Again, it's in the mid 40s. So all that is to say nearly half of your money is taken by

00:06:40.820 various levels of government. So municipal, provincial, and federal through the forms of

00:06:46.120 taxes, fees, levies, whatever else they want to call their highway robbery. And I bring that up

00:06:51.640 to you because sometimes it can get depressing and you can get bogged down especially this time

00:06:55.960 of year if you just finished filing your taxes and it may seem like something that's out of reach to

00:07:00.920 you. But I want you to do that thought process and imagine your salary doubled and remind you that

00:07:08.280 that is your money. The money you earn at your job and vocation, maybe you run a business,

00:07:15.000 maybe you work overtime, right? That is your money. It does not belong to the state. It does

00:07:21.320 not belong to the government. And then for folks, say your sister-in-law is chirping up at

00:07:26.440 Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, you're looking forward to seeing her this summer and you're

00:07:29.720 picturing her saying, oh, well, what about all the services we get? Okay. How good are your

00:07:36.120 government services? Have you been to a passport office lately? Have you tried to get City Hall

00:07:42.200 to act on something lately like filling in potholes? How good are government services

00:07:47.960 functioning for you right now? Are you getting your money's worth? Is this worth half of your salary?

00:07:56.280 So for folks who aren't familiar with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:07:59.720 it's that kind of stuff that we are focusing on quite frequently. I wanted to touch on a

00:08:04.360 few things before I go to our first guest and you do know him. So the news today is that it's

00:08:10.280 kind of trumpeted as good news of yay the inflation rate is slowing it's now at 2.7

00:08:19.240 right well 2.7 doesn't sound like a lot right that sounds like a lowish number we're under three

00:08:25.880 so that must be good right no it's still going up that is the point right so the inflation rate is

00:08:35.560 still going up year over year. It is still costing you more money for the basic necessities of life

00:08:43.260 year over year. And for folks who don't know, the inflation rate is typically calculated based on

00:08:49.560 what the government will call a basket of goods, okay? So literally picture a basket of goods.

00:08:56.420 So imagine your groceries in one side of the basket, and then outside of that, they'll look

00:09:01.640 at things like housing and fuel, all that sort of stuff. For those of you who went away for the

00:09:07.460 long weekend, maybe you headed up to the mountains with your friends and had a few drinks at a higher

00:09:12.540 tax rate, by the way, because the tax on alcohol did go up on April 1st. If you fueled up the truck,

00:09:19.200 maybe you actually have a boat, right? You probably noticed how much more expensive it is

00:09:24.820 this year than last. Then you add on things like groceries and holy Hannah are groceries ever more

00:09:33.060 expensive now. And I find that this is where people really start connecting with things like

00:09:38.160 inflation because that's what we do hopefully every week. If you're able to, you go to the

00:09:43.000 grocery store, usually it's a mom, sometimes it's a dad or whatever, and you do a big shop on the

00:09:48.320 weekend. So anecdotally speaking, for a family of four, my average bill has gone up over the last

00:09:56.260 few years from about $260-ish if I'm being careful to around $345, $350. Again, being careful. We're

00:10:06.740 not stocking up on steaks or big hunks of meat or anything like that. This is just your average

00:10:11.660 grocery shop. Turns out the numbers actually bear fruit there. Turns out that since 2021,

00:10:19.100 so April of 2021, three years ago, inflation on food is up more than 21%.

00:10:27.120 Yeah. So if you're noticing that your average family grocery bill has jumped over the last few

00:10:34.300 years from the mid 200s for the week, give or take, to the mid 300s, give or take, for the week,

00:10:41.660 you're not wrong. The numbers are showing that to be true. And this is where I really wanted to

00:10:48.200 bring their attention to, because the inflation rate is not just something that is caused

00:10:54.580 naturally. So quite often you'll hear government and bureaucrats and even some media commentators

00:11:01.480 actually describe inflation in Canada as a global phenomenon, as if this is some sort of

00:11:08.340 coronal mass ejection from the sun. Okay. That is suddenly striking Ottawa and like innocent old

00:11:17.100 federal government had nothing whatsoever to do with this. And OMG, inflation is occurring. Passive

00:11:23.360 voice. There's nothing passive about this. The vast majority of this blame and responsibility

00:11:29.260 is at the foot of the Trudeau government. Okay. Our guest coming up next is going to explain this

00:11:37.280 much better than I can because don't tell anybody, but he's got a degree in economics.

00:11:43.020 Super smart dude. But generally speaking, okay, if the government hikes your taxes on essential

00:11:49.980 things like say gasoline, natural gas, and diesel, by the way, trucks still run on diesel.

00:11:56.200 And if you increase the cost of trucking, you increase the cost of pretty much everything we

00:12:01.320 eat and use. And at the same time, if they lock down businesses and industry, so you are producing

00:12:08.520 fewer things, you're creating fewer objects and widgets to pay for with your money, and you're

00:12:15.480 running the printing press over time, you're printing money, right? You are going to cause

00:12:20.740 inflation. And so this is largely what we are seeing right now. So again, you might hear some

00:12:26.880 of the tone coming out of the media this morning saying, hey, great news. Inflation is slowing.

00:12:32.200 Inflation is cooling. That is good news. But the real news is that the cost of living is still

00:12:38.100 going up. Inflation is still going up. And why does it keep on going up? Why are governments

00:12:45.280 overspending, right? So keep in mind, we just saw a brutal budget. I don't even like calling it a

00:12:52.420 budget, okay? Because the deficit is tens of billions of dollars with a B. Our debt now is

00:12:59.220 $1.4 trillion. I'll say that again real slow. The federal debt right now is more than one point,

00:13:09.680 here we go, about $1.4 trillion. You're on there, $1.2 trillion. Basically, the Trudeau government

00:13:15.320 has managed to double the debt this year, okay? What we pay on the debt, okay? Our debt

00:13:22.000 interest rate for this year, what we're paying on the debt, okay, your debt interest payments,

00:13:27.320 okay, like your credit card payments, picture it. What we're paying on the interest on the debt

00:13:31.520 is about the same as what Ottawa transfers to the provinces for healthcare. It's about the same

00:13:39.340 that Ottawa takes in in the GST. Yes, remember mentioning the GST a while back? Yeah, what

00:13:47.200 What you're paying right now, folks, in the GST is largely going to paying the interest

00:13:52.640 on the debt.

00:13:54.000 And so for folks who are wondering, why do they keep spending money and wasting money 0.90

00:13:58.800 on dumb things? 0.95

00:14:00.120 We wonder that too. 0.99

00:14:01.520 We are constantly pleading with the Trudeau government to stop wasting money.

00:14:05.960 Speaking of wasting money, they just finished spending a whole heck of a lot of money flying

00:14:11.840 to a sunny location to lecture the rest of us on climate change, and why the rest of

00:14:17.520 us shouldn't be taking flights, why the rest of us shouldn't be driving cars, and why the

00:14:21.800 rest of us, who knows, need to cut back on our day-to-day living. How do we not do that

00:14:26.580 when the grocery price is up more than 20% over the last three years, right? But I wanted

00:14:31.080 to do a musical intro for our next guest, okay? Because this is something you have got

00:14:37.440 to see. So again, the Canadian government sent a big delegation overseas to one of their big fancy

00:14:44.720 climate summits. They had what's called a Canadian pavilion on site. Again, taxpayers paid for this.

00:14:52.240 Taxpayers did not pay for the performer to do his next performance. I did want to stress that.

00:14:57.200 We paid for the stuff around him and we paid for our politicians to go there,

00:15:02.160 But we didn't pay the tab for this amazing rap performance.

00:15:06.240 But in honor of our next guest, I wanted to play this for you.

00:15:12.000 Take a listen to this rap.

00:15:19.660 All right.

00:15:20.400 I don't even know what it says.

00:15:24.820 Climate disinformation.

00:15:26.620 Get that immunization.

00:15:28.320 The vaccine for bad meme infiltration.

00:15:30.380 Infiltration, climate misinformation, it leads to polarization, which leads to radical conspiracy

00:15:36.560 ideation, simultaneous translation between conspiracy theories and violent means of

00:15:42.520 change, embracement, economic incentives, or ideological basis, it doesn't matter,

00:15:48.000 because either way it's still disinformation. Climate change is upon us and emissions are

00:15:53.340 like a bomb as the wave of increasing heat carries on and on. The wave of disinformation

00:15:58.880 keeps on getting shared online, tracked by the lab of Marie-Yves Carignan from Université

00:16:05.200 Sherbrooke. According to her book, the anti-government left and right now share a yearbook. And when

00:16:10.720 it comes to floods, droughts, and wildfires, even today's environmentalists can be climate

00:16:16.000 deniers. Those are the yoga QAnon people up in the mix. Marie-Yves tracks the patterns with the

00:16:22.160 acronym FLIP. False X-words, fallacious logic, unrealistic expectations, cherry-picking and

00:16:28.320 Conspiracy theory ideation that's flick

00:16:30.680 Advertisers can help us find the fix

00:16:33.020 The climate host is exposed

00:16:34.900 Brought to you by Wix

00:16:36.260 From the false promotion of bad pollutions and tricks

00:16:39.440 To the outright denialism saying it doesn't exist

00:16:42.640 There's a reason for the IPCC

00:16:44.920 It doesn't make assumptions

00:16:46.660 Make your advertising conscious

00:16:48.480 Take it from Jake Dubbins

00:16:49.860 Yes, we need free speech to get the facts in the fight

00:16:52.720 But like Jake said, ad revenue is not a human right

00:16:58.320 Yeah, so that was a rap star who goes by the handle Baba Brinkman, and he apparently is the son of a Liberal Member of Parliament, Joyce Murray, and his job is apparently to rap about things like climate change, and he put on that performance at the recent climate meeting that our government was at.

00:17:18.220 Joining me now is the Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:17:23.980 my good friend and colleague Franco Terrazzano. Whenever he is ready to rock. There you are,

00:17:28.780 Franco. Welcome back to Lethbridge. Hey, I don't know how I'm going to top that intro,

00:17:34.220 but I'll try. Okay, so for folks who are not sure where Franco is right now,

00:17:40.220 we've expanded our empire in southern Alberta, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:17:45.180 And Franco is also here in Lethbridge, so we will be saving on long-distance charges.

00:17:50.560 Franco, can you please explain what our viewers just watched just a little bit?

00:17:55.880 Yeah, that was the wrap at the Canada Pavilion at the COP28 United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai.

00:18:03.400 And, like, folks, the federal government ended up spending $3 million sending 182 people to this United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai.

00:18:14.660 Three million bucks, folks, you know, because, you know, nothing screams fighting climate change, like jetting around the world, burning through jet fuel and burning through millions of taxpayer cash.

00:18:26.800 But all said and done, it looks like taxpayers are on the hook for like at least three million dollars for these 182 politicians, bureaucrats and other delegates to fly halfway around the world and talk about climate change.

00:18:39.200 Brutal.

00:18:39.680 And so for folks who want to check out the story, it's on our website, taxpayer.com.

00:18:44.340 Our good friend and investigative journalist, Ryan Thorpe, dug up a lot of this data.

00:18:49.780 Do you have the numbers in front of you, Franco?

00:18:51.460 Can you break down a little bit on what we paid for things like flights?

00:18:55.120 I'm sure they were all electric planes.

00:18:57.300 And then we'll get into some of the menu costs.

00:19:01.020 Yeah, well, okay.

00:19:01.620 So let me break it down.

00:19:02.420 So at that Canada Pavilion, that cost us $1.3 million.

00:19:06.420 so they can showcase the breadth of Canadian climate leadership, whatever that means, $1.3

00:19:12.820 million. You also had $800,000 spent on transportation. You had $470,000 spent on

00:19:20.780 accommodations. You know, they were staying at places like the Marriott, the Premier Inn, of

00:19:25.320 course. There was even a couple rooms booked in the range of about $800 a night. So it sounds nice

00:19:32.900 when you're putting it on the taxpayer credit card.

00:19:35.380 And then they also spent like $300,000

00:19:38.340 on meals and incidentals.

00:19:40.800 That's just amazing.

00:19:42.300 So for folks who are watching this,

00:19:44.580 I can hear your blood boiling right now. 0.76

00:19:46.320 And it kind of speaks to the hypocrisy, right? 0.74

00:19:48.880 So here are the, it's the same thing

00:19:50.520 where the Trudeau government will spend

00:19:52.160 about a million dollars in one year

00:19:54.060 on affordability retreats that we all pay for, right?

00:19:57.640 They get to jet to some fancy hotel and eat fancy things

00:20:00.500 and yap about affordability.

00:20:02.260 When, by the way, most of their bills are paid for and have been for years as members of parliament cabinet ministers. But the same thing is happening here, right? They're flying to some faraway fancy place to fight climate change while literally flying there on on jets. Do you ever get any response from the federal government or do we ever get any response?

00:20:23.220 I know we see a lot in our in our inbox from our supporters do they ever try to justify these kind

00:20:28.780 of expenses like are they are they reducing climate change by having these meetings well I

00:20:34.100 think for the most part they just try to look the other way and hopefully nobody notices right I

00:20:38.180 think that's their number one strategy if they even get to a number two strategy if we can call

00:20:42.960 it that they'll just say oh you know fighting climate change is important but you know I don't

00:20:46.880 think fighting climate change I don't think you do that by flying 182 politicians and bureaucrats

00:20:51.920 halfway around the world like I said burning through jet fuel and millions of tax dollars

00:20:55.980 now this isn't a one-off folks right like this happens all the time that was COP 28 in Dubai

00:21:02.900 let's not forget about COP 26 in Glasgow okay where Canada sent 276 delegates which was the

00:21:12.260 largest of any G7 country including the host nation the United Kingdom okay but not only was

00:21:20.260 that bizarre you even had her own finance minister christia freeland who apparently doesn't have 1.00

00:21:25.900 google maps on her phone because she stayed in the wrong city she stayed in edinburgh which is like

00:21:32.340 if i can remember correctly 86 kilometers away from glasgow where the conference was happening

00:21:37.720 so what did the finance minister end up doing well to get back and forth uh she booked a luxury 0.99

00:21:43.260 chauffeur service and billed taxpayers like three thousand dollars to get her back and forth to the 1.00

00:21:48.480 conference and this wrong city that she decided to stay in so not only were they burning jet fuel

00:21:54.720 i guess they were also burning a bunch of fuel for this luxury chauffeur service that is just

00:22:00.300 amazing and it reminds me of that same finance minister uh i think it was last summer when she

00:22:06.140 went up to prince edward island outside of charlottetown by the way charlottetown does not

00:22:11.260 have a rapid underground subway train just spoiler alert but she was still outside of charlottetown

00:22:16.600 And she starts lecturing people there, like potato farmers there, about, you know what, I'm car free.

00:22:23.180 I don't drive my car and everybody should be taking public transit.

00:22:27.440 Survey says taxpayers actually pay to cart her around. 1.00

00:22:32.240 Funny how that works, like most cabinet ministers.

00:22:35.200 So she was within the GTA, even when she was within the Toronto area where they have things like the GoTrain,

00:22:41.680 she was still, by and large, being driven around.

00:22:43.860 guess what? At our expense, at taxpayers' expense. Now, Franco, where do we go from here? I know I

00:22:50.960 often hear from people saying, you know what, we can give them, you know, the Teddy Waste Awards, 1.00

00:22:55.240 we can give them all these golden pig trophy statues for blowing our money on these stupid, 1.00

00:22:59.500 hypocritical things. But where do we go from here? Is the answer just to put so much pressure on the 1.00

00:23:04.660 next government that they either don't go to these meetings or they zoom it in or they send,

00:23:09.880 i don't know a handful of people to these instead of a hundred people well no i don't think we want

00:23:15.960 to wait that long right like we can get some wins today and and one of the ways that you can also

00:23:21.480 put pressure on on these politicians and bureaucrats is uh we've seen it work in committees or at least

00:23:27.320 work to an extent right like so this is a good segue because you you probably remember when the

00:23:32.520 governor general infamously and her entourage of about 30 people spent more than a million dollars

00:23:37.720 on a week-long trip to the middle east where they blew what almost a hundred thousand dollars on

00:23:43.720 airplane food like i don't even know how you blow a hundred thousand bucks on airplane food

00:23:48.520 but they were dining on like beef carpaccio uh beef wellington chris you can't even get beef

00:23:54.120 wellington flavored chips on your normal airline i don't know how they're you know dining on the on

00:23:59.720 the real deal but after that like after the story broke i believe it was the national post who

00:24:04.680 who originally had this story,

00:24:06.360 you have the members of parliament in this committee

00:24:08.880 bringing some of the high level bureaucrats in front of them

00:24:11.740 to answer for this crazy expense.

00:24:13.920 And I'll remember some of those bureaucrats

00:24:15.640 were trying to act shocked saying,

00:24:17.780 we had eggs, we had omelets,

00:24:19.820 we don't know how the bill got that high.

00:24:21.900 And then those bureaucrats told the members of parliament

00:24:24.640 at committee that they didn't have the receipts.

00:24:26.840 Well, one problem folks is that the CTF

00:24:28.880 had already had the receipts and we were making them public.

00:24:31.800 And after all of this came to light,

00:24:34.360 you do have these committee members and some of these bureaucrats promising to do better big report

00:24:39.340 on it on how the government can actually cut down on some of these costs so you know long answer

00:24:44.500 short you don't gotta wait for the next government there are ways to put pressure on these politicians

00:24:49.720 and bureaucrats right now yes exactly and for folks who don't believe it just pick up the phone

00:24:54.940 send an email talk to your member of parliament because i'm guessing especially if they're part

00:24:59.800 of the governing parties. So if they're liberal or NDP, they're not blind. They're looking at the

00:25:04.960 polls. Okay. And they're seeing the headlines. And if they're worried about losing your vote

00:25:09.600 in the next election, now things get really serious because now their creature comforts

00:25:15.500 might be cut back on. So that's a good way to go after them. I wanted to touch on the inflation

00:25:19.880 rate a little bit with you because I teed you up earlier in the show. You do have a degree in this

00:25:25.280 stuff. And so I know I was explaining it in a really pedestrian sort of way of like printing

00:25:30.680 so much money and shutting down industry at the same time causes, you know, a big problem with

00:25:35.580 inflation. What do you say in your head or out loud when you hear people say something like,

00:25:41.600 oh, well, this is a global phenomenon. Inflation is a global thing. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:25:46.540 and the finance minister have really nothing to do with this. What are we to do? What's your

00:25:50.920 analysis of that and how it affects Canada? Well, first of all, I mean, when other countries

00:25:55.440 and when politicians and bureaucrats in other countries do silly things, they get the same 0.93

00:25:59.800 silly results, right? When they hype taxes, when they run these huge deficits, when they print a

00:26:04.460 bunch of money in other countries, yeah, they're going to get the same result. But like folks,

00:26:08.480 like Chris, as you mentioned, like inflation doesn't just magically happen. Okay. It doesn't

00:26:13.320 just fall from the sky. There's certain government policies that create inflation. And let me just go

00:26:18.760 through four. Okay. So number one, you have inflationary taxes, taxes that are designed

00:26:23.980 to raise prices like the carbon tax, right? I say this all the time. Every time Trudeau goes by like

00:26:30.680 a shell gas station and he sees those high prices, he's patting himself on the back because the whole

00:26:35.960 point of the carbon tax is to make things like gasoline, diesel, propane, natural gas, more

00:26:41.640 expensive. The second thing is just overall taxes, right? Income taxes, payroll taxes, because the

00:26:47.780 less money that you have in your pocket the less that you can afford all of the necessities of life

00:26:53.860 right if you had more money in your pocket everything would be relatively more affordable

00:26:59.700 the third thing and you mentioned this is the lockdowns well when you put an economy

00:27:05.140 in revolving lockdowns for like two years you produce less stuff you produce less of the stuff

00:27:10.500 that money buys okay and number four which is the real driver here is the printing press the central

00:27:17.620 bank printing money out of thin air buying financial assets like government of canada debt

00:27:24.100 okay and like during these the height of the pandemic years you have the central bank the

00:27:28.500 bank of canada print more than 300 billion dollars out of thin air by buying things like government

00:27:36.020 of canada debt so you have the printing press essentially financing the large deficits in

00:27:42.020 Ottawa guess what folks that creates the perfect storm for inflation which is too many dollars

00:27:48.180 chasing too few goods you've explained this to me on our many car rides from Calgary to Lethbridge

00:27:54.180 but can you explain to the listeners how does the how how does printing money buy government debt

00:28:01.140 explain that how that works well you essentially have like the government running these huge

00:28:06.180 deficits especially like we have big deficits now but we had like some crazy banana deficit

00:28:11.940 it's in the couple of years of the pandemic, right? So essentially, there's a couple of ways

00:28:15.840 this can happen. Normally, you have the financial institutions that buy the debt directly, and then

00:28:21.960 you have the central bank buying the debt from those institutions by creating money out of thin

00:28:27.260 air. Now, one of the ways you can see how much the central bank has printed is by looking at the

00:28:32.680 growth in their assets, their balance sheet. Well, when the Bank of Canada's assets that are holding

00:28:38.380 grow by more than 300 billion dollars you have to ask yourself how did the bank of canada get that

00:28:43.740 money did the bank of canada have a bake sale no it didn't it gets the money by creating new dollars

00:28:50.220 at a thin air by a click of the keypad right and this is how inflation tax works because as you all

00:28:56.940 know you can't just print new money or you can't just print gasoline out of thin air you can't

00:29:01.660 print farmland out of thin air you can't print new homes out of thin air but the bank of canada has

00:29:07.020 has and can print new dollars out of thin air by buying these things like government assets or

00:29:12.600 government financial assets. Crazy. So lastly, on the inflation topic, and then I'll move you over

00:29:17.920 to carbon taxes. How do we fight this? So people will often say, oh, well, you can't all of a

00:29:23.500 sudden stop the music or everybody's going to fall off of the chairs that are too few of them.

00:29:28.140 How do we then fight this inflation monster? What would the Trudeau government be able to do?

00:29:33.540 Well, number one, you got to allow things to be built that produce the goods that money

00:29:37.660 buy, right?

00:29:38.480 Because there's essentially two equations or there's essentially two things going on

00:29:42.180 in inflation.

00:29:42.840 Number one is how much money is, how much printed money is in circulation.

00:29:47.080 But number two is how much of the goods that people buy are also being produced.

00:29:52.380 Well, one thing that the Trudeau government could do is allow for more energy and natural

00:29:56.120 resource projects to go through.

00:29:58.180 That's no cost to taxpayers.

00:29:59.560 just let these natural resource workers and resource companies get to work producing the

00:30:05.100 energy that we all rely on. Number two will just allow us to keep more money in our pockets right

00:30:10.880 we all know that the payroll taxes again went up this year the government could stop jacking up

00:30:15.580 payroll taxes it could cut income taxes to allow us to have more money to buy you know the goods

00:30:21.200 that we need. Number three what the government really has to do is cut spending and stop running

00:30:27.160 these crazy 40 billion dollar deficits and actually balance the books right stop adding on

00:30:33.240 more debt cut spending put down the credit card exactly and on the issue of credit card it was

00:30:38.840 shocking to me when you were covering the federal budget and you found that with our massive you

00:30:44.280 know more than a trillion dollars in debt folks if you don't understand how big a trillion is

00:30:49.240 if you started counting loonies right now like scrooge mcduck it would take you about 30 000

00:30:54.440 years to count to one trillion okay so our debt is more than a trillion dollars and the interest

00:31:00.280 charges on that debt you were saying is the equivalent of what we either pay in the gst

00:31:06.520 or what ottawa sends to provinces and health transfers that was mind-blowing

00:31:11.560 interest charges on the debt are now costing taxpayers more than a billion dollars a week

00:31:16.840 more than a billion dollars a week now to put that in perspective like a new hospital costs around

00:31:22.520 a billion dollars to build to have under construction right so think about what we're

00:31:27.060 losing the money's not going to health care it's not going to lower taxes about 54 billion dollars

00:31:32.300 this year in interest charges are going to the bond fund managers on bay street just to service

00:31:37.060 the trudeau government's debt and chris you're absolutely right in fact the federal government

00:31:42.120 is wasting more money on interest charges than what it sends to the provinces and health transfers

00:31:47.300 more on interest than what the feds are sending through the canada health transfer but not just

00:31:52.380 that folks like welcome to Canada every time you're in line and you're going to check out and

00:31:56.740 you pay the GST every penny collected from the federal sales tax is now going to pay interest

00:32:03.540 on the Trudeau government's credit card wow okay that's a really good visualization very quickly

00:32:08.840 lastly I know a lot of folks were hitting hitting the road for the long weekend they were fueling

00:32:13.840 up the truck they were heading out in their campers things like that if they were fortunate

00:32:16.900 to be able to do so they probably noticed how much they were paying at the pump can we

00:32:22.220 over a little bit of how much the carbon tax is costing people i i am i'll leave you i'll leave

00:32:27.660 you after this with a little bit of hope but i wanted to get at the cost first how much is the

00:32:31.500 carbon tax really costing people when they're filling up things like their pickup trucks and

00:32:35.260 their minivans yeah so it's what 17 cents a liter of gasoline is 21 cents per liter of diesel of

00:32:42.780 course we're hopefully hopefully winners over now i was in alberta for may long it didn't feel like

00:32:47.580 winter was over but you all just paid the carbon tax on your natural gas the carbon tax on your

00:32:52.460 propane to stay warm uh the carbon tax alone on natural gas cost the average family like 300 bucks

00:32:58.780 this year alone so it's a big bill folks and and you know speaking of the disinformation around the

00:33:04.300 climate policies well i think the biggest amount of misinformation is coming from the trudeau

00:33:08.860 government itself whenever it talks about the rebates of course the federal government can't

00:33:13.420 tax you and then make everyone better off with rebates uh in fact we're in alberta right now

00:33:18.380 well the carbon tax will cost the average family here in alberta 911 more than what they're getting

00:33:25.820 back in rebates this year and that cost is only going to go up as trudeau continues to crank up

00:33:30.940 the carbon tax every single year and more bad news that doesn't even factor in the second carbon tax

00:33:37.740 that the Trudeau government brought in through fuel regulations last Canada Day.

00:33:42.620 Wow, that is brutal. I did have a question from the audience that I will lean forward and squint.

00:33:47.740 I know the answer to this one, but I want you to want you to take it. Hey, Franco,

00:33:51.740 has Minister Freeland ever balanced the 2018-19 books? There was a $600 billion not accounted

00:33:58.460 for there for a long time. So has the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government

00:34:03.660 ever balance the books did it balance itself sure hasn't sure didn't um okay so uh you might

00:34:11.340 remember when uh mr trudeau was first running to be the prime minister back in 2015 he said

00:34:15.740 oh we'll just have these little tiny deficits don't worry about them they'll be very small

00:34:20.780 about 10 billion or less every single year and we'll finally balance the budget in 2019.

00:34:25.740 that didn't happen uh 2019 comes along even before the pandemic and the federal government was

00:34:31.180 running about a 20 billion dollar deficit now that doesn't look like a balanced budget to me

00:34:36.780 fast forward to today folks even after a massive capital gains tax hike even after a tax hike that

00:34:43.740 will chase away investment chase away jobs go after doctors they're still running a 40 billion

00:34:50.620 deficit this year and the best that the Trudeau government seems to be willing to give taxpayers

00:34:55.580 is a pinky promise that they'll eventually bring the deficit down to 20 billion dollars

00:35:00.540 five years from now what a way to run the country all right uh franco i wanted to leave you with a

00:35:06.540 nice note um it is good to see i think um more of a popular attack against the carbon tax right for

00:35:14.380 the longest time here at the canadian taxpayers federation we were pushing pushing pushing

00:35:18.540 trying to explain why the carbon tax is costing people so much money but man this is now getting

00:35:23.980 into the popular vernacular when you and I were driving back from Edmonton we pulled over to an

00:35:29.440 axe the tax rally that was just randomly happening on the side of the highway safely on one of those

00:35:34.760 truck pullouts that was really cool to see yeah a little bit of optimism right because we're talking

00:35:39.480 about the massive spending we're talking about the massive tax increases and we're also talking

00:35:43.480 about inflation and I think the general public is understanding that it's the federal government's

00:35:49.500 crazy deficit spending and borrowing it's the federal government's tax hikes that are really

00:35:54.540 driving the fact that canadians can't afford hamburger meat nowadays so a little bit of

00:35:59.660 optimism folks is that people are understanding that it's the government's crazy spending and

00:36:04.780 crazy tax hikes that are making life unaffordable and more and more canadians are just getting fed

00:36:10.140 up and saying enough is enough you know so let's uh keep the pressure on folks i know it could feel

00:36:15.820 like tough times now but i think there's some light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully we

00:36:19.900 can rein in the crazy deficits crazy spending and crazy tax heights awesome thank you so much franco

00:36:25.980 take care bye so that is again franco terrazzano uh he's a dear friend obviously and the federal

00:36:31.820 director of the canadian taxpayers federation we usually have him sent off to mordor there in

00:36:37.580 ottawa holding down the fort but for the next week or so he's at home here in alberta so we

00:36:43.180 were talking about the carbon tax and how this has now become part of the popular vernacular.

00:36:48.540 And I wanted to give you a little bit of a retrospective first on the carbon tax here

00:36:53.820 in Canada, if I may, because it's one of my favorite topics because it infuriates me

00:36:58.700 because it makes everything cost more money. And I wanted to leave you with a little white pill,

00:37:03.100 a little bit of optimism at the end of this show. So the carbon tax here in Canada started back in

00:37:09.500 2008. It actually started in the province of British Columbia. Back then, politicians promised

00:37:17.260 us many things. It reminds me of that old saying of, how can you tell a politician isn't telling

00:37:24.540 the truth? His lips are moving, right? Back in 2008, the BC government brought in a provincial

00:37:32.460 carbon tax. Back then, it was a few cents per liter of gasoline and diesel, and they promised

00:37:38.460 many things. They promised that it would be revenue neutral. They promised that it would

00:37:43.860 stop at $30 per ton. They promised that it would reduce emissions in British Columbia,

00:37:50.280 and they promised that it would create a plethora of alternative affordable energies for people to

00:37:57.980 switch to. I'll get back to that in a second. Today, none of that is true. None of that is

00:38:03.440 true. It's now $80 per tonne federally. It is a forced mandatory minimum carbon tax across the

00:38:09.480 country. British Columbia was used as the template, by the way, for the federal carbon tax. It's going

00:38:15.100 to be going up to $170 per tonne. When combined with the second carbon tax, this thing is going

00:38:22.140 to be over 50 cents per litre of gasoline. Yeah, figure out your fuel tank capacity and then do

00:38:27.780 the math, right? So that is how the carbon tax started. Oh, by the way, emissions keep on going

00:38:33.920 up in British Columbia. So outside of when, you know, lockdowns had happened and people weren't

00:38:39.500 allowed to leave their bubble and people's businesses have been shut down by the government,

00:38:43.780 okay, emissions in British Columbia keep rising pretty darn steadily, even though they have two

00:38:50.840 carbon taxes in British Columbia, even though it is costing folks an arm and a leg to live there.

00:38:56.100 It's one of the major reasons why British Columbia is often described as unaffordable

00:39:00.180 for working people. So here we have this carbon tax, which is now kind of spread all across Canada,

00:39:07.380 which is just making the cost of living, right? Eating food, heating your home, driving to work,

00:39:12.820 making that cost much more, and it's not reducing emissions. So here we are with this carbon tax.

00:39:19.380 So, on average, okay, if your sister-in-law is talking about her rebate, okay, the average

00:39:26.980 Alberta family this year will be out more than $900 net. That's with the rebates factored in.

00:39:36.900 I'll say that again slowly. The Parliamentary Budget Office did the math on this. In that

00:39:43.220 report, they have calculated the average Alberta family will be out net more than 900 bucks this

00:39:52.380 year with the rebates factored in. And as Franco was saying, that's of course common sense, right?

00:39:59.260 So when the Trudeau government tries to say things like, you get more back than you pay in,

00:40:03.860 that's nonsense. Everybody with the shred of common sense knows that if you give the Trudeau

00:40:08.960 government to 20, they're not giving you back a 50 at no cost. Okay. There's always a cost to this.

00:40:16.080 There's also the cost of the GST. There's also the millions of dollars we have to pay to bureaucrats

00:40:21.160 to administrate the carbon tax in Ottawa. So here we have a carbon tax that is costing us an arm and

00:40:27.520 a leg. It's going to continue to increase year over year. And guess what? It's not reducing

00:40:32.220 emissions. And that's where I wanted to get to, to close on this. Okay. And we'll probably get

00:40:36.480 and do a little bit more of this later on in this week, we'll most likely be

00:40:39.500 speaking with energy analyst Dan McTague, but we are now on a deadline.

00:40:45.420 So within about 10 years, okay, because it's going to be here sooner than you

00:40:49.720 know, okay, by 2035, the government is going to ban the sale of what we would

00:40:57.260 often refer to as normal vehicles.

00:40:59.780 So your vehicle that runs on gasoline or diesel will be banned in Canada.

00:41:06.480 Guys, that's in 10 years' time. That's a really short window of time, okay? Why are they doing

00:41:13.040 this? Well, ostensibly, you know, to reduce emissions, right? That's what they try to say.

00:41:18.980 But we have a few questions about that. Namely, what business is it of the government to ban

00:41:25.420 your vehicle, right? This should be up to individual drivers as to what they want to

00:41:31.640 drive here in Canada. At the Taxpayers Federation website, we actually have a petition about this

00:41:36.840 that you can sign telling the Prime Minister, telling the federal government to back off

00:41:42.080 and not go through with their 2035 ban on internal combustion engine vehicles. Don't force people

00:41:49.640 to purchase electric vehicles if they don't want to. Secondly, where is the energy going to come

00:41:57.040 from. This part is really, really critical. And I wanted to take a moment to point this out

00:42:01.740 because a lot of times people will get caught up in the, how much am I paying for the carbon tax

00:42:07.000 per vehicle? Answer. If you drive a minivan, it's around $13 extra every time you fill up.

00:42:14.600 If you drive a pickup truck, it's roughly $20 extra every time you fill up. This is just in

00:42:21.940 carbon tax. If you're a big rig trucker and you're filling up those two diesel tanks, on average now

00:42:28.980 the Trudeau government's mandatory carbon tax is costing about $200 extra on the diesel going into

00:42:36.260 those tanks. And for farmers, they're often paying thousands of dollars in the carbon tax to do 0.52

00:42:42.420 things like heat their barns, try to keep chickens alive in the middle of winter in Saskatchewan

00:42:47.940 without heating the barn. You can't. And also to dry their grain. So you see this layering effect

00:42:53.780 of the cost of the carbon tax, right? And so this is where we're highlighting that. We're also

00:42:58.980 pointing out this forced shift that the government is trying to produce here. Where is the energy 0.61

00:43:06.260 going to come from for those electric vehicles? I don't know, Sean, if we have the picture of

00:43:11.060 British Columbia's sightsee dam that we can pop up here. But yeah, take a look at that.

00:43:16.820 Okay? Squint really hard. You see those tiny little things way down at the bottom of that basin?

00:43:22.500 Those are gigantic earth-moving trucks, okay? You see in the foreground, those are major vehicles,

00:43:29.140 okay? And you see in the distance, those are huge construction cranes. This is a gigantic project.

00:43:35.140 Last I checked, it's costing around $15 billion with a B, okay? W. A. C. Bennett,

00:43:42.340 The premier of British Columbia, who was in power back in the 1950s, first picked this site.

00:43:48.320 So needless to say, BC has been working on this thing or at least planning it for an awfully long time.

00:43:54.100 You see that dam? That's often referred to as a mega project.

00:43:59.340 This is a once in every two generations-ish sort of a thing that the government and private industry will work on together.

00:44:05.620 If British Columbia switched to electric vehicles, this is just personal transportation, we're not talking industry or agriculture.

00:44:16.140 If personal vehicles all in British Columbia tomorrow switched to electric, Santa brought you an electric car, they would need nine new sightsee dams.

00:44:27.520 So what you just saw there, that gigantic project that's happening up in the north of BC, okay, picture that. Picture nine more of them. $15 billion each, not counting inflation. Okay? In some cases, taking decades in normal people time to plan and approve and build.

00:44:48.200 That doesn't sound practical to a lot of people. And this is where I think it's incumbent upon the government to have good answers for this. So the next time I would encourage all reporters or the next time you're at a rally or something like that, and you hear a politician say something like, oh, well, just switch.

00:45:06.120 Switch your vehicle from gas or diesel powered to electric, all electric. Plug in. This is not as simple as much as I find them annoying, right? And having to decide between them. This is not as simple as something like picking your plastic or paper grocery bags at the grocery store. Okay. For whatever reason. This is not that simple.

00:45:28.780 if people really did have an affordable, reliable, abundant energy source that they could simply

00:45:35.540 switch to, they would have done so by now because of the punishment of something like the federal

00:45:42.980 carbon tax. The point here is that there's nowhere for most people to go. Yes, there are some really

00:45:49.560 industrious people who can manage to live in like earthworm homes off grid that have hay bale

00:45:54.460 insulation and solar panels on the roof. Yes, I've read about all this stuff all the time.

00:45:58.700 There are some of those individuals. But by and large, the average working person

00:46:02.660 in urban or suburban areas, they cannot just switch like this. And whenever you ask the

00:46:09.340 government to explain themselves as to where this energy is going to come from, they're lost for an

00:46:15.160 answer. And they can't say something like solar or wind, because they have not been able to meet

00:46:20.620 that out and show it in the data that A, it'll be ready in time. B, it'll have enough power that

00:46:25.800 will be reliable. Okay. That doesn't need to be backed up by say a natural gas plant and see how

00:46:31.580 much it'll cost. Like how much will this cost taxpayers to produce and how much will it cost

00:46:37.340 rate payers to actually purchase if we're all plugging in our magical electric vehicles

00:46:42.440 overnight in order to go to work. So I wanted to leave you guys with that. And this is the white 1.00

00:46:48.060 pill. And it doesn't look like a white pill at first because it seems gross, but bear with me.

00:46:52.980 So a couple of years ago, during lockdowns in British Columbia, the Canadian Taxpayers

00:46:57.540 Federation was asked to give input at City Hall. Quite often they'll have these forums where they

00:47:02.980 ask people their opinion and they'll say, what do you think about this idea? And the idea at the

00:47:07.580 time, if I recall correctly, was twofold. One, they were going to massively increase their cost

00:47:12.680 of parking in front of your house. So your own house on the street, they were going to start

00:47:17.520 nailing you at Vancouver City Hall. And two, this was the kicker. Vancouver City Hall was

00:47:23.720 planning on arming a whole bunch of meter maids with like brand new tablets that they can take 1.00

00:47:29.660 a picture of vehicles with and determine how new it was. And if it was something like an SUV or a

00:47:36.560 pickup truck, they were going to tax you more. So they were getting right into the nitty gritty

00:47:43.140 minutiae as to what kind of vehicle you can drive in Vancouver. So that's a lot of money that they

00:47:49.160 were going to be taxing people. So the Taxpayers Federation, we were in the queue listening to the

00:47:53.700 presenters. Okay. I'm telling you this because the young lady that was on before me would have been 0.92

00:47:59.760 around 19 or 20 years old. And she was from one of the kind of environmental groups. And I'm not

00:48:05.200 picking on her. In fact, I have a lot of empathy for her. The fear in her voice was astonishing.

00:48:11.280 taking off even my taxpayer's hat and putting on my mom hat. It was hard to listen to. This young 0.80

00:48:18.820 woman was convinced that the planet was going to burn up within the next like 18 months unless the 1.00

00:48:27.660 city hall did this. Unless city hall banned pickup trucks for tradesmen and SUVs for families 0.76

00:48:33.400 from downtown or taxed them heavily to punish them. This poor young woman was convinced that

00:48:39.160 her generation was doomed within the next very short window of time, like a couple of years.

00:48:46.200 So, number one, shame on the adults, the teachers who taught that young lady this. It is wrong for

00:48:53.640 you to tell a young person that there's no hope, okay? You shouldn't say things like that. I don't

00:48:59.720 care how hardcore your environmentalism is, okay? This is a thrifted jacket. I'm a big-time small

00:49:04.760 environmentalist so the adults in her life should not have taught her something like that

00:49:09.960 and two i wanted to encourage the folks watching here especially if you have a young person okay

00:49:16.120 if you've got kids our kids are 16 and 11 okay they're in the public school system if you've got

00:49:21.720 young people in your life i wanted to leave you with this really funny little anecdote and i'm

00:49:26.920 almost done sean i want to pull up some of the images of new york city and london

00:49:30.200 So back about a hundred and something years ago, okay, the turn of the last century,

00:49:36.480 clocking in close to the late 1800s, humanity was gripped with another transportation crisis

00:49:43.180 and the pollution it causes, okay? And this is before the automobile was popularized in North

00:49:49.780 America, okay? So picture yourself back in the late 1800s. The only way to get around quickly

00:49:55.980 was through horse and cart. Well, guess what? We had major metropolises, places like New York City

00:50:02.280 and London, that were buried under mountains of horse manure. There, take a look at that.

00:50:09.540 This is an image, okay, according to the interwebs, of a street in New York City in the late 1800s.

00:50:17.020 Look at this. All that stuff you're seeing down the middle of the street, that's, by the way,

00:50:22.200 cobblestone you just can't see it because of the horse manure that is all over it and in some cases

00:50:28.440 it was heaping up on the corners take a look at this that thing in the middle you see of that

00:50:33.640 image i'm sorry it's kind of gross that's a horse that's a dead horse okay and this was not

00:50:39.880 exceptional okay quite often there would be you know horse carcasses off to the side there would

00:50:45.320 be horse mountains of horse manure off to the side and it was causing a massive number one

00:50:50.760 environmental problem, because just imagine the smell and the fumes and the reek and the off

00:50:55.740 gassing of all of this stuff. Okay. And it was combining with pretty heavy particulates coming

00:51:00.880 from wood and coal ovens to create what Londoners would call pea supers, where they would have to 0.97

00:51:06.340 seal up their windows and they would have to send people in front of the carriages with torches

00:51:10.440 in the middle of the day so they could see. Okay. The reason why I'm showing you these gross images

00:51:16.740 is to actually, conversely, encourage young people that, you know what? We have had problems

00:51:24.660 with transportation before. We've had serious problems, environmental and health problems

00:51:30.280 before. Imagine the disease in cities like that, where you have horse corpses and mountains of

00:51:36.680 manure everywhere. In major cities, keep in mind, this is not in some far-flung area that is really

00:51:41.700 rural. These were like the gems of human civilization that were living in situations like

00:51:46.960 this. What happened? Human beings invented a much better engine of transportation and mode of

00:51:54.040 transportation. And we got automobiles popularized. Are they perfect? No. Do we have scenes like this

00:52:01.400 in major downtown streets of London and New York? Sure don't. Take a look at that. And then take a

00:52:07.820 look at a street in places like Vancouver, okay? It is night and day. So I just wanted to leave

00:52:12.500 you with that of encourage your student, encourage your kids, the young people in your life to read

00:52:17.940 some of those history books, okay? Because reading past struggles that people have been able to

00:52:23.560 overcome with invention and ingenuity and brains is really encouraging because it makes it so

00:52:30.360 perhaps they could be the next person who invents the dilithium crystal from Star Trek, or frankly,

00:52:37.300 who invents the static electricity motor that is the centerpiece of Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged.

00:52:44.000 Okay, there's a big hopeful future out there and I wanted to encourage people to partake in it

00:52:48.940 and that doesn't mean that we need to punish people with a carbon tax here in Canada that

00:52:54.060 is making it more expensive for you to heat your home, drive to work, and eat food. I wanted to

00:52:59.980 leave you with another little bit of encouragement. For folks in the Edmonton area, please forgive me

00:53:04.480 if you don't live in the Edmonton area, but this is a housekeeping note because we always think

00:53:08.040 it's important to push back and speak up with government. Okay. So at Edmonton City Hall,

00:53:13.920 okay, coming up very soon, there is a public consultation into separating the city into

00:53:19.760 planning districts. Okay. Yes, you might have heard about something like 15-minute cities. Here

00:53:24.760 it is right here. Okay. This is from the Edmonton website. So over the next few days coming up very

00:53:30.600 soon. They're going to have a few days of consultation. Now, to be fair, I've heard a

00:53:35.800 lot about 15-minute cities. Here, take a look at this case starting on Tuesday, May 28th this year

00:53:41.420 at 9.30. So, you can either go to City Hall Council Chambers yourself and you can also watch

00:53:47.020 online. And I would also frankly encourage you to write an email to your local municipal

00:53:52.900 councillor if you're living in Edmonton and let them know what you think about the city being

00:53:57.460 separated into districts. So I just wanted to briefly touch on this. Okay. Because it does

00:54:02.020 affect your life. Yes. I have heard all about 15 minute cities. Feel free to comment if you want

00:54:07.600 to. But to be fair, I have put in freedom of information requests on Edmonton. I have not

00:54:14.380 found anything when it comes to license plate readers or cameras or anything like that. If I

00:54:19.340 did, we'd be reporting it. Okay. But separating a city into districts, 15 separate districts does

00:54:26.100 affect your life okay it will affect you know where they're going to have a rec center or where

00:54:30.820 they're going to have a grocery store or a school what is going to be considered the hub of your

00:54:35.380 neighborhood what are going to be the main spoke roads for commercial businesses so if you are a

00:54:40.740 homeowner okay or if you're a renter or if you're a business owner if you've got kids in school or

00:54:45.860 you like being able to be a 15 minute walk from the gym or the rec center or whatever it's important

00:54:51.780 to give your feedback on this stuff because this is how City Hall is going to distribute their

00:54:57.700 planning, right? So again, on May 28th, do call up City Hall. Do see if you can be a speaker there.

00:55:04.500 By the way, if they have a whole bunch of speakers, they're going to extend the consultation

00:55:08.340 process. I would highly recommend if you're living in the Edmonton area to be one of those speakers

00:55:13.380 because, give you a good example again, in Calgary, this is how they got rid of the bag tax

00:55:19.060 was from people, normal people like you, speaking up and pushing back on City Hall.

00:55:23.540 That's all for today's show here on The Andrew Lawton Show. If you liked it, didn't like it,

00:55:27.620 or if you're neutral, please leave a comment. And at the end of the week, we will go into the

00:55:32.100 mailbag. But for now, I'm going to take a break and come see you tomorrow. Have a good one.

00:55:39.220 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North

00:55:43.860 at www.tnc.news.

00:56:13.860 We'll be right back.

00:56:43.860 We'll be right back.

Juno News - May 21, 2024

Life in Canada keeps getting harder

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