Juno News - June 30, 2024


Trudeau’s Indo-Pacific trip cost $223k in airplane meals

Mentioned
Andrew Lawton Show Justin Trudeau Chris Sims Pistachio Nanshi Preston Manning Lindsay Wilson Tristan Hopper W.A.C. Bennett Rachel Thomas Jason Kenney Lethbridge Nancy Pinky
Will Justin Trudeau resign？ Did rampant antisemitism sway the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection？

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

187.89

Word count

2,439

Sentence count

210

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of Alberta Monday Maven, we talk with Chris Sims, Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Lindsay Wilson, Alberta's Taxpayers' Federation, about the upcoming election. We talk about the Nanshi vs. Kenney campaign, and what we can learn from it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Anyway, let's turn to our Alberta Monday Maven, Chris Sims, the Alberta Director for the Canadian
00:00:15.500 Taxpayers Federation. Just bouncing off of that discussion we had there with Lindsay Wilson,
00:00:20.820 Chris, from a taxpayer perspective, what's your big concern or thing that you're looking for with
00:00:26.260 Nancy? Yeah, our big concern clearly is about the amount of high taxes that went through the city
00:00:32.500 of Calgary and the amount of spending also. So here in the province of Alberta, we now just recently
00:00:38.800 have an excellent law which was passed along with balanced budget legislation, and that keeps our
00:00:44.040 rate of spending increases below the rate of inflation plus population growth. That sounds
00:00:49.380 super nerdy and wonky and boring, but if they had done this a generation ago, Andrew, we'd have like
00:00:55.480 300 billion dollars in the bank right now with a B. That's not including resource revenue windfalls,
00:01:01.420 that's just like prudent spending. So we're pretty concerned about that. So I'm in the middle of doing
00:01:07.220 a deep dive into what Mayor Nanshi did when he was at the helm of the city of Calgary. Now there's a
00:01:13.980 little bit of a blip there in 2014 where they drastically changed their accounting practices,
00:01:18.380 which is right in the middle of his tenure. So it's a little bit harder to scale, but that's the main
00:01:22.960 thing we're looking at is how much taxes went up and how much spending went up when he was in charge
00:01:28.500 and how we can potentially compare that when he could potentially be the NDP Premier of Alberta
00:01:34.600 someday. So definitely something to keep an eye on. And the last little scuttlebutt rumor I heard
00:01:40.300 is that he might be looking at Lethbridge West, which is not my riding provincially, but it's like
00:01:46.660 over there. It's across the coulees, across the bridge. And that's, of course, because a very
00:01:51.260 prominent MLA Shannon Phillips within the NDP has stepped down there. So there's going to be an
00:01:57.520 open seat. She was the one who left and said conservatives were too mean. And that's why 1.00
00:02:02.440 she was getting out of politics, right? Yes. And I was surprised there. I thought she was going to run 0.96
00:02:08.080 for NDP leader. But then she said conservatives are too mean. And then through her support behind
00:02:13.720 Nanshi. So now things are really kind of shaping up to be quite a skirmish. And it actually happens to be
00:02:19.600 here in Lethbridge, which works out great, because this means I can be at all of his press conferences.
00:02:24.140 I'm sure he'll be happy to see me. If that alone doesn't keep Nanshi out of Lethbridge, 1.00
00:02:27.980 I don't know what will. Explain this to me, because federally, Lethbridge is a conservative
00:02:32.000 stronghold. And provincially, it's like the blip of orange in southern Alberta. How the heck does that
00:02:36.940 happen? Yeah, great question. So federally, that's, of course, Rachel Thomas is writing. And so
00:02:42.080 federally, it includes all of the city of Lethbridge. And this big honking swath of rural area,
00:02:48.240 including Warner County down to Sterling. I was just there last night. So that's a bit,
00:02:52.920 you know, very, very dark blue conservative. But provincially speaking, there's a riding boundary
00:02:58.500 that we're basically we have this little kind of depression where it's like a big river valley.
00:03:03.320 It's called the Cooleys. They're ancient dinosaur bones, actually, you can dig for them. But it's this
00:03:08.480 depression. And so that's the west side. That's where the university is. That's where all the profs live
00:03:14.160 over there. That's where all the students have all their housing and stuff. And so that's actually
00:03:18.340 why you'll often see the election date bump back and forth, depending on when the school year is
00:03:22.880 ending at the university. So yeah, that is why that's a bit more orange over there. But to be fair,
00:03:29.800 when Jason Kenney first won as premier, I think the NDP won there by like 240 votes,
00:03:36.700 like a weekend of door knocking. So it's not hard orange. And if you dig dig way, way down there,
00:03:43.980 beside the dinosaur bones, it's actually the NDP plan to balance the budget, believe it or not.
00:03:48.960 It is just as fossilized. And actually, I think the dinosaur bones are a little bit fresher.
00:03:54.220 Let's talk about something you don't want to eat dinosaur bones. So I can't do a natural segue to
00:03:59.300 this. But I was on, so I went to Winnipeg last week, as I just shared, and I was flying on Air
00:04:04.660 Canada. And I got to the airport at Pearson Airport, and everything was fine. Then my flight gets
00:04:10.040 cancelled. And this was at four o'clock. Well, first, it was delayed. So I was supposed to leave
00:04:14.220 at four. It got delayed to 545. And then it got cancelled. And I was speaking the next day at noon.
00:04:20.560 And they had said, Oh, well, we can book you on a flight that leaves Toronto at noon tomorrow,
00:04:24.700 and goes to Montreal. And then when you're in Montreal, you can get to Winnipeg by, you know,
00:04:29.100 sometimes next year. And there were like five other flights going to Winnipeg before then,
00:04:34.260 and every single one of them was full. So they're like, so Air Canada says, Well, we can put you on
00:04:39.200 WestJet. And I said, Okay, fine, do that. They're like, Oh, I actually can't, but book it yourself
00:04:43.460 and send us a receipt. So I did. And all that was left at WestJet was, you know, a middle seat on row
00:04:48.360 like, you know, 157. And which I took and went to Winnipeg and everything was fine. It was not like the
00:04:55.420 high flying experience that you get if you fly with Justin Trudeau to a global summit. Tell me
00:05:01.860 what was on the menu for the PMO and the delegation that went with him to the G20.
00:05:08.160 Yeah, this is really bad. So I'm going to laugh through a little bit of this. But I wanted to
00:05:13.080 give a preface. I'm laughing because otherwise you'd cry. I know this gets depressing. I know the
00:05:18.360 government blows your money taxpayers. So I'm not laughing at you. I'm trying to mock the Prime
00:05:23.900 Minister for being such an elitist out of touch dingbat when it comes to wasting your money.
00:05:30.080 So folks might remember this big long overseas trip that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his
00:05:35.740 entourage went on. The entourage varied from around 72 ish people all the way down to 37 ish people,
00:05:43.820 give or take on depending on which leg of the journey they were on. They hopscotched over through
00:05:48.060 Indonesia. They went to India, all that fun stuff. Now, you might remember a couple of years ago,
00:05:54.800 about a year and a half ago, when the Governor General went on this Mideast junket trip for some
00:06:00.440 random reason. There's no reason for the Governor General to leave Canada. So she went over there
00:06:05.300 and they blew about $100,000 on airplane food. Now, back then, the bureaucrats seemed to forget where 0.71
00:06:13.160 the receipts were, even when they were being questioned in committee. Turns out the Taxpayers
00:06:17.440 Federation had the receipts. That's where folks might remember they were eating things like beef
00:06:21.920 Wellington, right? Like super fancy. Now, this is the issue, Andrew. They promised, Pinky swore,
00:06:28.980 that they wouldn't do this again. That they realized this was out of touch with regular Canadians.
00:06:33.400 They were not going to eat high on the hog while flying around. So fast forward, now the Trudeau
00:06:39.320 government goes flying around. They doubled it. So they blew around $220,000, thereabouts,
00:06:46.760 on airplane food. The food included things like beef brisket, lamb shanks, this fancy sort of
00:06:55.620 cheesecake that I can't even pronounce, which has like a pistachio crumble or something attached to it.
00:07:02.660 Pistachio brittle. Pistachio brittle.
00:07:04.500 Pistachio brittle. Sorry. I'm sorry. I am a peasant.
00:07:08.200 You've offended the, you know,
00:07:09.520 Michelin-starred chef that the liberals hired to do that menu.
00:07:12.400 This is it, exactly. And so it is so much money, Andrew. And also, there was a little detail in
00:07:18.820 there that made me gag. Apparently, the Prime Minister's dinner had to be served on China plate
00:07:24.880 and not just regular dishes like the rest of us. So I'm highlighting this, of course,
00:07:31.160 because we are dealing with massive inflation, like a 40-something year high in inflation.
00:07:37.260 We are dealing with runaway budget spending. This government has no plans to ever balance the
00:07:42.680 budget. We've got about a $40 billion deficit. They've doubled the debt. What we pay in the GST
00:07:49.620 across Canada is now our interest payment on this debt. We've got food bank lines that wrap around
00:07:56.620 the buildings. These guys are not getting the message. They're still flying around eating
00:08:02.400 lamb shanks off China plate. Shout out to Tristan Hopper at the National Post because he sat there 0.99
00:08:08.860 and did the math. I can picture him. He figured out that this is equivalent to nine bathtubs
00:08:14.360 full of Bev Oda level orange juice. I did a more rudimentary math calculation because as I
00:08:24.340 understand it, on one of the flights or one of the legs of the flight, let me just pull up my
00:08:29.120 numbers here. For that one particular flight, the catering bill was $85,000. Now, as I understand
00:08:37.320 it, there were different numbers of passengers depending on the leg of the journey. The maximum
00:08:42.140 was 72 passengers. So let's assume that that was the flight that had the $85,000 bill. That is $1,180
00:08:50.280 and 55 cents per person. For that one part of the trip.
00:08:57.120 Yeah, for one leg of the flight. I'm like, how much do you need to eat or how much do you need to
00:09:02.840 charge for food to rack up that much on a flight? I don't know how long the flight was. I'm trying to
00:09:08.000 think of how long a flight would have to be for me to eat and drink $1,200 worth of food and drink.
00:09:13.200 And I'm a big guy. I don't even think I could do that readily.
00:09:17.240 That's it. This is it. And I'm glad you pointed it out that way because even try to use regular
00:09:22.240 brain math. How do you do that? Over a thousand bucks in one day? That's a lot of those WestJet
00:09:28.880 pretzels that I had come to think of it. Bro, that is like lobster with saffron sauce
00:09:34.680 and champagne you and I probably don't know the origin of. That is a crazy amount of spending.
00:09:39.800 And it is so out of touch. Like, I think, I don't know if it was Tristan as well,
00:09:44.040 but they figured out that was like 11,000 of the fanciest Subway sandwiches you could imagine.
00:09:49.360 And I'm talking the roast chicken. Not the $5 footlongs. Those are like the full, okay.
00:09:54.100 No, this is not your Wednesday special. Yeah, one of the menu items, pan-fried beef tenderloin
00:09:56.900 with port wine sauce. And the beef brisket came with mashed parley potatoes with truffle oil.
00:10:02.660 Truffle oil. Yes. See, that's going to run you some dough. 0.96
00:10:05.660 When was the last time you were served that on an airplane?
00:10:08.060 One of a, a friend of a friend of mine was on a flight once. I think it was Air Canada. And
00:10:12.640 they had said, you know, do you want something to eat? And he said, what are my options?
00:10:15.640 And the flight attendant said yes or no. Okay. That's a pretty good line.
00:10:21.140 That's what you usually get when you're traveling by air. Yes, exactly. It's like that.
00:10:24.860 Actually, even then I don't even think yes is an option typically. I think it's different. It's no.
00:10:28.720 Exactly. Exactly. Which kind of dry pretzels do you want? And this is what we're pointing out here.
00:10:32.620 And some people might be saying, oh, well, they're the prime minister. What do you want them to eat?
00:10:36.340 You know, some, you know, pork rinds out of a bag like I do when I used to try to ride the greyhound
00:10:41.340 with my grandma. No. But they could at least try to keep things within reason. And spending more
00:10:47.440 than a thousand dollars a person for one leg of your trip while being insisting on eating off China
00:10:52.160 plate while you are bankrupting the country is not within reason. So I'll give you good examples here.
00:10:59.420 So back in the day when Preston Manning became the leader of the opposition and leader of the
00:11:03.920 Reform Party of Canada, before he came along, it was standard operating procedure for every member
00:11:09.760 of parliament to fly the equivalent of first class. So whatever the terminology was back in the late
00:11:15.200 80s, early 90s, they always flew that way. Preston looked at the bill. He's like, why? Why are you
00:11:20.560 flying first class all the way? You're flying coach. So every member of parliament within the Reform Party
00:11:26.360 had to fly coach. Back earlier than that, in the 1950s, 1960s, W.A.C. Bennett, very famous premier
00:11:33.840 of British Columbia, used to make his staff come to him to ask if they could make a long distance
00:11:41.040 phone call. For real. Because it was incurring cost to the taxpayer. And so if you actually start
00:11:46.940 paying attention to not eating lamb shanks while you're eating off China plate and flying around
00:11:52.660 the world for some reason, while you're bankrupting the country, you will suddenly start paying
00:11:57.160 attention to the big stuff, too. And it might lead them to, I don't know, balancing the budget,
00:12:03.260 not being tone deaf, not realizing that their people are really struggling to afford basic groceries
00:12:10.180 right now, like struggling to afford hamburger. Maybe you shouldn't go jet around the world and fly
00:12:15.940 like this. Just hats off to the media to both alternative and mainstream. They did pick this up,
00:12:21.120 and I'm glad they did. Because it lets people really understand where the money's going.
00:12:25.520 Yeah. And whenever you talk about expenditures for MPs or salaries for MPs, you always end up in
00:12:31.600 this situation and that it's hard to put the optimal number. It's hard to come out and say,
00:12:35.380 what's the optimal salary? But we can all look at this as reasonable people and say, it's not this.
00:12:40.960 Yes. It's a lot lower than this. It's a lot less than this. Well, great work on this as always.
00:12:45.480 We'll talk to you next Monday. Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Keep up the fight.
00:12:49.500 Bon appétit.
00:12:50.960 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.