Juno News - June 30, 2024


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


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

187.88516

Word Count

2,439

Sentence Count

199

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

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
00:02:02.440 she was getting out of politics, right? Yes. And I was surprised there. I thought she was going to run
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,
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
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
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.
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.