Smith's pitch for highspeed rail
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Summary
Last week, Alberta announced the launch of its passenger rail plan to help support Alberta s growing population, which is growing rapidly. Joining us today to discuss it is fan favourite and the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims.
Transcript
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Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day on Alberta Roundup. She has her say.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.
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Last week, the Alberta government announced the launch of its passenger rail plan to help support Alberta's population, which is growing.
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They have already committed $9 million to support the development of this plan.
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Joining us today to discuss is fan favorite and the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims.
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So, starting off, let's take a look at what this plan promises to do.
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It would create a regional line between Calgary and Edmonton, rail lines connecting Calgary and Edmonton to Banff and Jasper.
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There would also be a commuter connection to Calgary International Airport and surrounding communities and to the city's downtown core.
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You'd be able to go from the Edmonton airport to the city and the downtown community and the surrounding communities.
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And then there would also be a provincial rail system connecting Calgary and Edmonton.
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And interestingly enough, there would also be a rail line connecting Fort McMurray and Grand Prairie,
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which isn't necessarily places I would have thought that would have a ton of foot traffic.
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But that's essentially what the plan promises to do.
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And the premier has said that it will really help people who are in those morning commutes bumper to bumper.
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Let's actually play that clip now of the premier talking about how this will help people in the morning who are, you know, hundreds of people commuting.
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Let's see what she had to say about it last week.
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We see the value in a commuter passenger line that connects folks in those communities to the Calgary airport and then on to the downtown core, in the case of Airdrie, for a more streamlined and relaxed commute.
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And we believe that a solution like that will also work in Edmonton and the entire capital region.
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But we also want to open up direct access to our breathtaking and adventure-rich national parks.
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So the Alberta government is saying that Alberta's population now, 4.9 million people, will reach 7.1 million people by 2051.
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And that's a big part of the reason why they're pushing this railway plan to support all those people.
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Now, first and foremost, is this railway line something that you see people asking for right now, Chris?
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It kind of surprised me when I saw the announcement.
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We hear from supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
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who are, by the way, by and large, pretty big fans of Premier Daniel Smith.
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I hadn't seen one email in the last two years asking for this sort of a thing.
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If I can take off my CTF hat for a second and put on my fangirl hat, that's a really cool shot.
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Seeing Premier Daniel Smith in front of an old school train, it reminded me of Atlas Shrugged and Dagny Taggart.
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But the thing there with Atlas Shrugged is that that is private money.
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And to see this kind of taxpayers' money being earmarked for another rail plan, it's a little bit concerning.
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So you mentioned we already have $9 million earmarked.
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These sorts of plans have a really nasty habit of ballooning into way more money.
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They could have used that for other things like tax relief.
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Again, we're open to the idea of this being a good idea, but we would rather see private investment get behind it.
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And we're really leery about a ton of taxpayers' money being poured into plans that don't go anywhere.
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Like, for example, in eastern Canada, they've been talking about having a high-speed rail corridor between Quebec City and Windsor since before I was born.
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And so, yeah, it was a little bit surprising to see this plan.
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I'm open to being surprised if they manage to do this under budget and with private money.
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But right now, we're just not seeing the demand and the reason for using taxpayers' money.
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So, when we talk about government money being used here, there's already been $9 million earmarked for it.
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The government said that will be used for a cost-benefit analysis, which will include things like looking at the governance and delivery model,
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and will take into account future population growth and technology like hydrogen powertrains.
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We know the premier is so excited about hydrogen all the time.
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So, that $9 million, that's really just being used for the study.
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And that seems like a pretty heavy-duty price tag to do a cost-benefit analysis.
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Again, they already have people that are supposed to be on staff within the bureaucracy that are good at this kind of stuff.
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Now, the joke's on us if they're actually good at that sort of thing.
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But $9 million just to figure out if this is worth the money, that's an awful lot of dough.
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And so, we've put in some freedom of information requests with the Alberta government trying to find out what they're anticipating.
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Like, are they making any guesses as to what this might cost if they see it fully put forward?
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I thought this was more just between the major commuter centers of Calgary, Edmonton, and a bullet train out to Banff for the fancy tourists.
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But don't know if it's worth it for the amount of population density.
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Quite often, just speaking anecdotally, and I don't know if this has been the case with the Alberta government, of course,
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when I have friends who typically work in big industries or government and they go to Europe for a long time,
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And they're like, why can't we have that here in Canada?
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Well, Canada's gigantic and we have a really low population density compared to Europe.
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Again, if they can pull this off and it's under budget and they're not using taxpayers' money to a great extent
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and they've got a lot of private investment, power to them.
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That would be really cool, especially something like a train out to the airport.
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But again, we're really leery and really hesitant no matter which government is doing it.
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I can definitely see the argument for a train to the airport.
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But I think one thing I think about is, you know, taking a train out to Banff or to Jasper.
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If you're there, it's the winter, it's negative 20, negative 30.
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You're not exactly going to be wanting to wait around for city transportation.
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I think for most people, they'd rather have their own vehicle there and be able to get around, especially in those cold temperatures.
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I don't know if I really see the argument for this being utilized in places like Banff and Jasper.
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And then, of course, we get into the questions of what happens when you get off the train in Banff
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and then you want to go fancy skiing or fancy sightseeing up in the mountains.
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Is there going to be a train that takes you up there?
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Is there going to be some sort of taxpayer-funded bus service that uses hydrogen?
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Like, there's all sorts of kind of knock-on effects and cascading effects that can come from this sort of thing.
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Again, Alberta is beautiful and taking a train is really pretty.
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And so I can see the attraction from a tourism standpoint of having that happen.
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You know, in fact, about 100 years ago, the, you know, come to Canada sort of posters,
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especially that we had for the Western provinces,
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often showed some beautiful train cascading through the mountains and it looked gorgeous.
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The problem is, is yes, those images are really nice, but what is the final price tag?
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And again, spending $9 million already to find out how much it's costing,
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They're not red lights, but we have some caution lights here.
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Yeah, I just think this isn't maybe the right time for an announcement like this.
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I am consistently getting, you know, emails and messages from people who are saying,
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we're about $100 away in my family every month of not making ends meet.
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I know you deal with these people every single day.
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This is, you're always receiving calls about this,
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but there's a lot of people who are really feeling that crunch right now.
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And I think that they're hoping for some relief from the government.
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We know things like the income tax relief that was promised, that's been delayed.
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The government is promising maybe it won't even be the full extent of what it was.
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We're still waiting to see relief on the fuel tax,
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even though we know gas has been high for the past couple of months.
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I expect this announcement is probably falling on deaf ears,
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but you would probably have a better line on that.
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We're getting exactly the same sort of messages as you guys there at TrueNorth, Rachel.
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It's not just us anecdotally getting these really tough messages that we're getting phone calls and emails.
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MNP, which is basically a financial accounting and analysis firm.
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Every few months they put out a big analysis and they say that around 50%, give or take,
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but around 50% of Canadians are within $200 every month of bankruptcy,
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meaning not being able to make the minimum payments on all their bills.
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Yes, we are more affordable when it comes to things like housing
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and the fact that we don't have a sales tax, which is very good,
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and I'll try not to cry because I got mascara on,
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is the language of working families are increasingly depending upon food banks.
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What that really means in normal people talk is that a parent who's holding down a job
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is counting on donated jars of peanut butter to feed their kid.
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That's what that means, working families relying on food banks.
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So yeah, affordability is key right now, like really, really key.
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So I will put some pressure on the UCP government here.
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When they were campaigning during the last election,
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Okay, they pushed hard on reducing our baseline income tax rate.
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So what that means is here in Alberta, your first $140,000 or so of salary is taxed at 10%.
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If you're moving here from another province, and you're making around $100,000,
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say you're a plumber or a police officer or something like that,
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you're going to notice your paycheck will be lower here in Alberta.
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That is because our income tax is relatively high.
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So what they promised to do is take that first bracket and drop it down to 8%
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What that means is you're probably going to save around $750 per worker here in Alberta
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The key here though, Rachel, is that they've kicked that can hard.
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And now they're saying, oh, by 2026, we'll bring it down to 9% if we have the money to do so.
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That's not what they said during the election campaign.
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They made it sound like this was going to happen in a hurry.
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And they don't seem to be in a hurry to give us income tax relief.
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To your point also, I will point out on the fuel tax.
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Yes, Premier Daniel Smith did get rid of the provincial fuel tax fully for a year.
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It saved Albertans around a billion dollars over that year or so, right?
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Now, it's all the way back up to 13 cents per liter of gasoline and diesel.
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Right now, I don't know what it is in your neck of the woods.
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But when I left Lethbridge, it was $159.9, often $162.9.
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When I visited Ottawa a few weeks ago, it was cheaper in Ottawa.
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I had never seen that before comparing it to Alberta.
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So yeah, people are really not seeing the affordability and savings happening here.
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And so I think this announcement for a cool new train was a little bit mistimed.
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If private investment comes flooding in and people love it and it's awesome and it's not
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costing taxpayers money, that sounds really, really cool.
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But right now, we really need to see the details and the evidence of that.
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The government has said, listen, we can't cancel the tax entirely unless we see the price of
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And I believe they said if WTI was over $90 a barrel, they would partially remove the
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tax and they would continue to lower the tax as the price of oil went up.
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I know I asked the premier about this in my interview with her about two weeks ago after
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And you said, we're going to take a look at this as well.
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Are you guys putting pressure on the government?
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Are you hoping this tax is going to be coming down soon?
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I know the premier had said at the time, you know, we need to have some consistency.
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And we absolutely are putting pressure on this government.
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And so we're hearing a lot from our supporters saying, hey, where's my relief at the fuel
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Why is it when I visit Manitoba and the NDP government led by Wob Canoe has taken 14 cents
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The NDP government of Manitoba has 14 cents off per liter of gasoline and diesel.
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And again, that's not just those of us commuting with our minivans and our kids.
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That's truckers saving that kind of dough every time they're filling up their big rig trucks.
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Again, to be fair, Manitoba's got a big deficit here in Alberta.
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So we have to pick our pick our wins and losses.
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But we are urging the government to find these savings as fast as they can.
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That was an excellent interview that you did with Dan from your Daniel Smith, because
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it got her on record about exactly how this fuel savings works.
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My concern, though, is that what happens if we stay high for our West Texas International?
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What if the price of a barrel of oil stays high all this time?
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And then in the two weeks leading up to their quarterly update, which I think should be July
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1st, should be the next one that they're analyzing.
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What if it suddenly drops for the two weeks leading up to that announcement?
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Are they then just going to pocket all of that excess cash and then say, no soup for
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you, it's technically not above this amount, and we're not going to give you fuel tax relief?
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So to your point, the price of oil has stayed high now for quite a while, past several weeks.
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We expect it's probably going to stay around that amount leading up to July 1st.
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But we really, really want to see that gas price, that gas tax come down when they do
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Okay, Kristen, just ending on a lighter note for you and for all of my viewers, you guys
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had your Teddy Waste Awards over at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation last night.
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Oh, it was a really tough competition at the federal level, as you can imagine.
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So for folks who don't know what we're talking about, the Taxpayers Federation, we've been
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around since 1990 before the internet was a thing.
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And one of the things we do is we hand out spoof golden pig statues to politicians and
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bureaucrats who waste your money in the most spectacular way.
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Now, some people might wonder, why is that funny?
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It's funny because when we mock them, they hate it.
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But when you ridicule and mock these desk rulers, they get really huffy really fast.
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So we have a huge award show every single year to honor the ridiculous waste of our money.
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So at the federal level, it was a super tough competition.
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It was really down to the wire between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blowing a million dollars
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And CBC CEO Catherine Tate begging for more money at the parliamentary committee hearing
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while handing out massive bonuses to their executive team.
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And so in the end, it was a squeaker, but Catherine Tate took home the hardware.
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So I will remind people that the CBC CEO is paid between 400 something thousand dollars
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and 600 something thousand dollars every single year.
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And the CBC takes 1.4 billion dollars from us every single year.
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To put that kind of money into perspective, Rachel, instead of spending that on the CBC,
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that would pay the salaries of 7,000 cops and 7,000 paramedics every year instead of paying
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So this is my little friend here, my stuffed pig I brought with me.
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But we gave out the golden award to Catherine Tate here quickly in Alberta, actually the provincial
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They won it for the provincial category here in Alberta because they gave something like
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$30,000 to an Alberta artist who drew a painting that Franco Terrazano described as ants on a
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And another performance she did was in South Korea, which was I think about eight minutes
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And it was her on one of those lawn chairs, you know, the ones that fold up like a lounge.
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And she was rolling around on it for like eight minutes.
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I could definitely roll around on a lounge chair for a couple minutes.
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And again, and not, you know, picking on the artist individually.
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It's the government's fault for giving out these ridiculous grants.
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People want to go watch that kind of art, like hour to them.
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And I'm remembering correctly, didn't Catherine Tate also lecture MPs about how they're worrying
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too much about their own bonuses while awarding herself around half a million dollars?
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And it's one of those strange tone deaf things where she just keeps on saying, yeah, everything's
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So much so, and I will, I thought I was asleep.
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You might remember back in, I think, December or January, that the national anchor, Adrienne
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Arsenal, on CBC, had her boss on her show and was grilling her about these bonuses and
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Never did I ever think that I would see the CBC anchor actually doing that.
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But if it's already trickling down to the rank and file, you know, reporters that work for
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that outfit, boy, oh boy, they got to have some reform, which is, again, why we want the
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If people want to donate or have a subscription to something like CBC Radio for remote locations,
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that's a whole nother kettle of fish and they can use their own money for it.
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Sounds like if we defund the CBC, then we solve our healthcare crisis right there.
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Lots of money to hire all the new staff that we need all across the board.
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And the audience, I'm curious to hear from you guys.
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What do you think about this passenger railway line?
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Do you think you would utilize it a lot or is it maybe not the best time for it?
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I'm definitely curious to hear what everyone else thinks about it.
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And I will be back on Saturday with our regular programming.