A carbon tax REVOLT？
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Summary
In this episode of Off The Record, the Taxpayers federation's Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) Director Chris Sims and Alberta Director of Campaigns, Chris Sims, talk about the carbon tax, Jagmeet Singh's carbon tax flip-flip, and the orange earthquake off the west coast of BC.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
I'm really looking forward to going to Strong and Free. It's an event that has held every year.
00:00:04.940
I'm so old that I was at the first Manning event, as they called it. And it was kind of a rubber
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chicken thing in Ottawa with a bunch of staffers and a bunch of writers. And that was back in the
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day that Ralph Klein was there. So I got my picture with the premier of Alberta. And it's
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funny because I'm helping to host Strong and Free this year. And I'm teasing Andrew Lawton,
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who isn't here because he's out busy, you know, kissing babies and stuff, trying to get elected.
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Andrew always has this joke. You guys have probably heard it a few times. It's when he says,
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you know what? I always filled in for Danielle Smith on the radio. So now I'm deputy premier of Alberta.
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So if I'm filling in for Andrew in Red Deer, I think I'm like third in command or something now
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for Alberta. So I'm looking forward to that. You're coming as well?
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Yeah, I'm going for the first time. So I'm really excited. I'm not really sure what to expect,
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I suppose, but it should be fun. I'm definitely excited to like, you know, just see everyone
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there and talk to them and get the face to face, you know, better than just sitting behind the
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Yeah, for sure. Actually talking with people in groups is an awesome thing to do.
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Cosmin, are you making the trip over across the Rockies or are you staying home?
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I'm not. I've actually never been, but I would love to go. Perhaps one day it's going to be held in BC,
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maybe. Okay. Let's see if we can get out to the promised land, maybe somewhere like Abbotsford,
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right? Could get you out that way. Yeah. So it's going to be really cool. We're going to be
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talking about a lot of, you know, smaller government pro-freedom type issues. So we're
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really looking forward to it. All right, guys, let's get this thing started.
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Hey there. Welcome to Off the Record. My name is Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director for the
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Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I'm joined now by my friends from True North. Thanks for letting me sit
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in on this. We have so much to talk about. It's been a crazy couple of weeks the last little while.
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We want to get started on the carbon tax. This is probably my favorite moment with the carbon tax.
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of watching the NDP flee the ship of the carbon tax. Did we want to start with Jagmeet Singh?
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Awesome. Okay, good. So guys, for the longest time, people probably remember Jagmeet Singh has been
00:02:19.580
propping up the Trudeau government on many issues, including the carbon tax. All this time,
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he's had his wheels locked on that big orange bus. He's refused to budge. But all of a sudden,
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the angels sang after their caucus retreat in Montreal, and Jagmeet went and spoke to the
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reporters, and I'm paraphrasing, here you go, said something along the lines of, you know what,
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we shouldn't be putting the carbon tax burden on the backs of working people.
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That's huge. That is a huge reversal of direction. And so while he didn't come right out and say,
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I'm going to scrap it and blah, blah, blah, I'm going to bring the government down,
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even having that bit of daylight in that armor now is a really big deal. And the bigger deal,
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in my opinion, is that what it caused, it caused an orange earthquake off the West Coast in British
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Columbia, and their cosmen, where you're sitting, Premier David Eby, NDP Premier David Eby said,
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you know what, I'm going to read the headline here, David Eby opens door to ditching carbon tax,
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quote, comma, blames Trudeau's politicization. Okay, guys, this is really big, because that's
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where the carbon tax started. That's its origin story in 2008 in BC. So to see David Eby suddenly
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go, oh, wait a minute, the carbon tax is super unpopular. And maybe I will be too in the looming
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election. Maybe I should reverse direction. What was your take on it? Cosman, did you want to run
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with this first? Yeah, I just wanted to mention with BC, it was actually the first carbon tax in all of
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North America, not just Canada. Across North America, BC was the first to introduce this policy
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in, I think, 2008. So it's been around for quite some time. So for the NDP Premier of British Columbia
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to come out one year after he told the NDP caucus at the BC NDP convention that he would never falter,
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that's his words, he would never falter on the carbon tax as his peers in other provinces were
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abandoning it by droves. And now here he is passing on the buck to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
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because technically, he hasn't fully abandoned it. He said he would only abandon it if the federal
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government removed the requirement from the provinces to keep a provincial carbon tax because
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the federal carbon levy doesn't apply to BC, they have their own policy. And it doesn't make sense,
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because if they have their own policy, they can remove it whenever they want. So they don't really
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rely on the federal requirement. And if they wanted to remove it, who knows how long it would take for
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the federal government to force the federal levy onto them. So I think he's just washing his hands
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clean of this thing. And he's putting the blame on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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This is a really big deal. If I can go back into ancient history for just a second. I was there
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in 2008, when British Columbia brought in the carbon tax. Back then, it was the BC Liberal Premier,
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Gordon Campbell that brought in the first, you're absolutely right, Cosmin, carbon tax in all of
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North America. And back then, it was all the rage. It was so popular that at the time, California Governor
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Arnold Schwarzenegger was all over this thing. And at the time, the BC Liberals tried starting the
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carbon tax by saying, oh, it's going to be revenue neutral. So number one, that revenue neutrality,
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that only lasted for a very brief time. It only took them a couple of years before they started
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playing funny business with the budget books. And it was not revenue neutral, right around 2010,
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around then is when it started. But what's super weird is what goes around comes around. Back then
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in 2008, if you can believe it, the provincial NDP in British Columbia campaigned against the carbon tax.
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They called the revenue neutral label, lipstick on a pig. They just get this, Isaac, I don't know if
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you knew this. Their campaign slogan in their 2008-2009 election, ax the tax.
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Yeah. And this reminds me of something we saw recently here in Alberta, Chris, which I'm sure
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you'll know, was when the NDP leadership race was occurring just recently. A lot of the candidates
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were running against the carbon tax. So it seems like whenever an election comes to fruition,
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these people want to ax the tax until they're elected. And then it's the complete opposite.
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So I don't really know what that's all about, but maybe John Rustad, he put it better. He said,
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David Eby has lied to British Columbians before, and he'll do it again. He's flip-flopped on this
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because he's losing ground. And if reelected, he'll waste no time reversing his position on the tax.
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British Columbians deserve real leadership, not a premier who changes his stance whenever it suits
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his political needs. So, I mean, yeah, that's really what's going on here, I think, as well.
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The election's coming up. People hate the carbon tax. Eby knows if he is going into the election
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supporting the carbon tax, he will likely have no chance.
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So this both pleases and annoys me at the same time for many reasons. It pleases me because this
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is when politicians are their most vulnerable. So I'm speaking to everybody here who wants things
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like the carbon tax scrapped in British Columbia. Push now. Get all of your friends and family out.
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Make sure that they're registered to vote. Make sure that they vote. Make sure they tell those candidates
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at the door when they're knocking and trying to sing for their supper exactly what you think of
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the carbon tax because they do answer to us. Unfortunately, the only answer to us every four
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ish years, although we do have recall legislation both in Alberta and British Columbia, which is a
00:08:04.980
good thing. It's a hard hill to climb. These elections are crucial because all of a sudden, exactly to your
00:08:10.500
point, Isaac, oh my gosh, look around. Look at all this flaming wreckage. Nothing is affordable.
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All the theory seems to evaporate from these politicians' minds, and all the sanctimony seems
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to just go out the window. And all of a sudden, they care about things like affordability or not being
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able to fill up your car with gas. And all of a sudden, someone like David Eby is saying,
00:08:33.300
you know what, I could scrap the carbon tax. To your point here in Alberta, and this is what's also really
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interesting is when you see people like Jagmeet Singh, the federal leader of the NDP, and David Eby,
00:08:44.980
the provincial BC leader of the NDP. It's the same party, by the way. They have the same constitution,
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same organizational structure, everything. You start seeing dominoes fall, and then other NDP
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politicians kind of have to speak their truth on this issue. We haven't heard from Nahid Nenshi.
00:09:02.340
So Nahid Nenshi is the newly elected within their party leader of Alberta's NDP. He has not given a
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straight answer, yes or no, on a provincial carbon tax here in Alberta. Because it's happened before,
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what happens if there's no federal backstop anymore? Say that Pierre Polyev becomes prime
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minister, and he keeps his promise, which he has to, to scrap the carbon tax. What's to prevent
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an Alberta carbon tax from happening here again? Every time a journalist tries nailing Nahid Nenshi
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down on this issue, yes or no, he evaporates into a cloud of orange smoke. So he's the last one
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prominently that I know of, guys, I don't know if you guys have heard, who has not yet said yes or no
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on the carbon tax. Yeah, and it was actually Manitoba Premier Wab Kinu who first really came out
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strongly against the carbon tax. And you're right, it is a domino effect because it's extended to the
00:10:00.100
federal, to BC, and I think it's going to spread and the pressure is mounting. But the other angle
00:10:06.980
to this is that I feel like it's a gamble for the NDP because there's a lot of people in that party,
00:10:13.380
progressives, environmentalists, who see this as a betrayal of one of the fundamental principles
00:10:20.740
that the NDP ran on in the last decade or so. And that group of people has sort of caused the NDP to
00:10:28.340
stray. As you mentioned, from the past, they had this working class unionist background that actually
00:10:34.980
was opposed to increasing taxes on ordinary people. But this group that has sort of come to the
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forefront of the NDP, these progressive environmentalists, are definitely shaking their heads,
00:10:47.620
thinking, is this the party that we've helped to transform? And I do think a lot of them think
00:10:54.260
this is a betrayal. Great point. Two things. A lot of them are freaking out. I forgot to mention this
00:11:02.020
off the top, but I don't know if you guys saw, I can't remember his name, but I think he's a professor
00:11:07.140
in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was freaking out when we saw Jagmeet Singh and then David Eby in succession
00:11:14.500
say, you know what? No more carbon tax. It's punishing people, blah, blah, blah. He actually
00:11:18.820
brought up, if I recall correctly, David Suzuki, who mused out loud many years ago about what kind
00:11:25.220
of punishments people should have for saying they're opposed, that they opposed carbon taxes
00:11:30.100
and things like that. This professor actually kind of mused out loud, oh, politicians who don't take
00:11:36.740
action on this, using that kind of language, but it was in reaction to scrapping carbon taxes.
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Politicians who don't take action on these sort of things, maybe they should stand for crimes
00:11:45.380
against humanity. Like, bro, back away from your phone. Go outside, as they say, and touch grass.
00:11:53.940
Like, no. And the reason why I'm saying this earnestly, it isn't just because I'm with the
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Canadian Taxpayers Federation and we know that the carbon tax costs people hundreds and hundreds of
00:12:04.660
extra dollars every single year, per year, even with the rebates factored in. That's all clear.
00:12:10.100
But if I can just reach out to these folks who truly think that it's the carbon tax in Canada
00:12:17.060
that is going to save the emissions problem, it's not. It's just not. Even if you took the idea that,
00:12:25.220
say, global emissions are the most critical issue you're facing, keeps you up at night, gets you up in
00:12:30.580
the morning. You're always working on it. The math isn't there, okay? Even if Canada ceased to exist,
00:12:37.860
God forbid, and we stopped eating and growing food and heating our homes, it wouldn't make a dent in
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global emissions, guys. So this is where I really don't quite understand who they would describe
00:12:49.940
themselves, I think, as hardcore environmentalists. They're missing this big part of the arithmetic
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problem here. So if we did something big like selling natural gas to places like India, which
00:13:00.660
want to buy it, that should have a big dent, a dampening effect on their very heavy emissions.
00:13:07.940
So why don't we do that instead of mindlessly punishing people financially for filling up their
00:13:12.500
minivan? Yeah, you kind of took the words right out of my mouth, Chris, because I was going to say that,
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is that Canada could have a much larger effect than reducing their own emissions by providing these other
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countries like India and China who are burning coal with our clean energy. I mean, you could actually
00:13:29.380
bring the emissions down globally in a notable way, which Canada could in no way, shape or form do on
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its own being such a minuscule portion of that percentage. And then just a few points I wanted to
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touch on here before we get off this story was that this for March 26 from a Leger poll said that 73% of
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British Columbians opposed the carbon tax. This was right before the increase on April 1st. And you can
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imagine that numbers since grown, given opposition to the carbon tax in general has been growing.
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And then the last thing I'll say was, yeah, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, he previously
00:14:03.940
sent David Eby a letter asking for his assistance in halting that carbon tax increase. And Eby said
00:14:10.340
that this was a quote, baloney factory campaign tactic. So now with Eby's recent news, Poilievre did not
00:14:17.140
forget. And he tweeted at him on X and said, quote, who is full of baloney now? I mean,
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as soon as I saw it, I was laughing. Okay, I missed that.
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I might have to clue that in an op ed. And I'm already thinking of a stunt handing out baloney
00:14:32.900
sandwiches in front of somebody's office. That's pretty good. It's it's related. Did we want to
00:14:38.340
so a lot of people are really upset. The right people, frankly, are pretty upset about this reversal
00:14:44.100
coming from the NDP, which, by the way, is a wonderful thing, right? Hey, you know,
00:14:48.340
better late than never. I'm super happy earnestly to see politicians saying, you know what?
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I've had this moment. I've had an awakening. I'm now going to back off. Good. You know why it's good?
00:14:58.020
Because it'll save people a ton of money at the end of the day. So I really hope that this happens.
00:15:03.220
Everybody pick up the phone, call your local MLA, call your local MP, especially if they're NDP and say,
00:15:09.300
you know what? Good job. Back off this carbon tax. Full reverse. Don't, you know, don't do it.
00:15:13.780
Scrap the carbon tax. It's a good thing to see. But it's upsetting some people,
00:15:18.180
including the environment minister, Stefan Guibo. Did we want to move on to that fun one?
00:15:24.660
Okay. So I was busy writing an awful lot of columns and letters to our supporters and stuff,
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because of course the carbon tax story was a huge one for the Taxpayers Federation.
00:15:33.700
And I saw this stuff online. Apparently, Guibo, he's got this video where he's doing the whole
00:15:39.780
wasn't that a romcom? I don't watch romcoms, but apparently there was some romcom where he's
00:15:45.380
some dude is standing on a doorstep, sad in the rain, and he's holding up his messaging on these
00:15:50.180
like white pieces of paper. I can't remember. My favorite romcom is Terminator. So I didn't see it.
00:15:56.740
So, but it's this thing that politicians started doing for a while. It was a trend where they hold up
00:16:01.220
their message on a little piece of white paper. Are we ready to roll that clip?
00:16:05.380
Pia Poliev has been the leader of the Conservative Party for two years. But did you know that he voted
00:16:11.540
400 times against protecting the environment and Canadians? All he has to offer are empty slogans.
00:16:19.540
He talks about technology as a solution to climate change, but voted against every measure we've put
00:16:25.380
in place to support technological development. What he wants to do is eliminate investments in a cleaner
00:16:31.860
future for Canadians, clean air, and clean water. What is his plan? Cut, cut, cut.
00:16:38.180
Okay. Cut. Indeed. Let's answer him and say cut. Okay. Did, apparently that music was part of the
00:16:45.460
original video. Just so people know. We did not add that as far as I understand. That was in
00:16:50.260
Gebo's actual video. Couple of really quick things from a taxpayer's perspective. Every time a
00:16:56.580
politician says investment, he means he's spending your money. The government doesn't have any money.
00:17:03.060
It's all taxpayers money. So the moment a government says investment, he means spend your money. Also,
00:17:09.860
again, if I could just convince him, if he really cares about global emissions, his carbon tax thing ain't
00:17:16.900
cutting it. So you might as well let it go and focus on other things. Isaac and Cosman,
00:17:21.540
who wants to take this one first? Sure. Just on the format of the video,
00:17:26.180
I think it's a gimmick. I'm sure there was some liberal staffer, some younger millennial who was
00:17:30.580
like, hey, this would be a great idea. I saw this on TikTok. This might speak to people in a new way,
00:17:36.260
but it comes across as inauthentic. It comes across as forced. And it's been, I guess we'll get into
00:17:43.700
this later, but it's, it's a perfect opportunity to meme the entire thing.
00:17:48.740
Yeah. Steven Guibault, I guess he's doing these fads now. Cause he, he recently did the brat summer
00:17:54.260
to whatever that was and kind of thinking along the same lines as you, Chris. The first thing
00:17:59.220
that came to mind when I saw this video and he said that Paulie voted 400 times against protecting
00:18:04.980
the environment. I was thinking how, so can you show me the data that proves the carbon tax does
00:18:09.780
anything to protect the environment? Steven Guibault, my guess is you can't, or you would.
00:18:14.660
We know for a fact that it makes Canadians poorer, despite the liberals consistently saying that it
00:18:19.620
makes eight out of 10 Canadians richer somehow, which we know to be false. Any Canadian with common
00:18:24.500
sense knows that to be false along with every document ever released on the carbon tax, proving
00:18:29.060
it to be false. So the carbon tax makes us poor and it somehow helps the climate when we know the number
00:18:36.020
one way to improve any large populace's carbon footprint is by making them richer. How come
00:18:41.540
our emissions have skyrocketed during the carbon taxes tenure? Well, when people are poor, their only
00:18:47.780
concern is putting food on the table and keeping the lights on by, by any means necessary. So they're
00:18:52.980
not at the luxury of making decisions that might be more eco-friendly.
00:18:58.820
No, I totally agree. And I think they're backed into a corner. They're trying to throw everything
00:19:06.180
against the wall that they can and hoping it sticks. You know, they've tried to rebrand the
00:19:10.980
carbon tax. You guys have described it as fairly as putting lipstick on a pig, which is true. They,
00:19:17.140
I heard recently, they're also looking at in more ways to try to advertise the carbon tax to Canadians,
00:19:22.660
but we're past that point. Canadians hear about the carbon tax every single day, and it's not in a
00:19:28.100
positive light. A marketing campaign where you're going to spend who knows what amount of taxpayer
00:19:35.300
money on consultants and marketers and PR officials is not going to help you get out of this mess.
00:19:42.260
We're past that point. The carbon tax as a policy is dead in Canada, but the liberals need to stop
00:19:50.260
waving that corpse around. It's like weekend at Bernie's, right? You know, they're walking around with
00:19:55.220
the corpse of the carbon tax and hoping nobody notices that this thing is, has passed away.
00:20:00.500
It's still good. It's still good. I think it's, I think it's $7 million that they're spending
00:20:06.580
advertising the carbon tax as if, you know, people are just too stupid to understand how awesome the
00:20:12.580
carbon tax is. Let's spend their money convincing them about it. Like, no, no, just put a fork in it.
00:20:19.300
It's done. To your issue on the emissions, yeah, even the government's own data on emissions is a
00:20:26.340
disaster because emissions keep on going up, not every single year, year over year, but quite steadily
00:20:32.580
in Canada, even since we first got carbon taxes back in 2008. And if I recall correctly, in British
00:20:39.620
Columbia, for example, again, the origin story of the carbon tax, I think they were supposed to bring
00:20:45.700
down emissions by 30% below 2007 levels by 2020. I think they were up like 2.5%, like huge fail, huge.
00:20:57.860
And if I can get into this a little bit more, it isn't because people don't care about the environment,
00:21:04.260
as some of these politicians seem to think, like it's all about them and you failed me. No,
00:21:10.020
it's because normal working people do not have an affordable, abundant alternative energy source to
00:21:18.020
switch to. You have not ticked all those boxes, politicians. So if somebody needs to drive their
00:21:24.420
kid to work or keep their chicken barn heated, which by the way, farmers pay carbon tax on that,
00:21:29.460
it's going to cost them a billion dollars by 2030. PBO did that number. People need to keep their homes
00:21:35.860
heated. They need to get to work. If they don't have something they can switch to that is reliable
00:21:42.340
and affordable and there, they can't. They're just backed into a corner. And so I'll put a fork in it
00:21:49.300
this way, when it comes to the hypocrisy of politicians pushing this carbon tax. Back in 2008,
00:21:54.980
when it started in BC, and I hope to see that thing gone, they said it was going to stop at $30 a ton,
00:22:01.620
that it was going to be revenue neutral, that it was going to create a plethora of affordable
00:22:07.140
alternative energy sources, and that it was going to make emissions go down. None of those things is
00:22:12.980
true. None, which is why you see so many people against the carbon tax. You guys were saying that it's
00:22:19.140
created memes. Now I'm showing my age. Does this mean that they have to freeze the video and then like,
00:22:27.060
like, like, white out what he said, and then put their own messaging in there? Can you explain this
00:22:32.580
to me? Yeah, that's pretty much it. People just Photoshop out the messages on the cards. But some
00:22:38.740
people left the cards on like the empty slogans one, and they just took a screenshot of that,
00:22:43.940
which is like perfect, because that's all the liberals have been about with the carbon tax and
00:22:48.740
the environment. That one's pretty good. Oh, that's gonna upset him, though. He's gonna say that
00:22:55.460
that's misinformation that he loves you too. Brenda, taxes make the weather good. Oh, goodness.
00:23:01.060
So again, that's pretty good. And again, it's one of those comms things, right? Like,
00:23:05.780
if you're getting if you're the staff, and you're the director of communications, and you're getting
00:23:09.860
your boss to do that, you should see that coming. Don't hold up a blank piece of paper. Same thing
00:23:16.420
with ladies. Don't wear a green dress, because that'll make you like, they can apparently like make
1.00
00:23:22.260
you wear whatever after that, or just have your head floating there. So those are always really
00:23:26.740
fun inside tips. So that's a lot of fun. Did we want to get to a much more serious situation here,
00:23:32.100
actually, with the NDP leader on Parliament Hill? Okay. So as far as I understand, this is a couple
00:23:38.740
of days ago. This is I worked on Parliament Hill for 20 years. This is on Parliament Hill. This looks like
00:23:45.700
it's right outside of West Block, which by the way, is where the House of Commons is right now.
00:23:51.140
Because Centre Block, the Peace Tower one that everybody's used to thinking of with Parliament
00:23:54.820
Hill, that's been under renovation construction forever. No, I don't know how much it's costing us.
00:24:00.260
I'm scared to look. So that's under construction. So the House of Commons that you see on question
00:24:05.140
period is actually over in kind of a side building, which is still up on the hill, called West Block.
00:24:11.140
And as far as I understand, this is a confrontation between some person, like an average person on the
00:24:17.060
street, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, where they get into a pretty stern verbal confrontation.
00:24:56.900
I didn't say nothing. It wasn't me. It was a gentleman behind me, I guess.
00:25:08.500
If I said something like that to you, I'd admit it.
00:25:12.420
Now, I asked you if a confidence vote came up to you.
00:25:18.420
So that was looking like it was getting pretty tense.
00:25:21.860
That is Parliament Hill security that you could see there kind of standing ready.
00:25:25.700
So in law enforcement, they were within like a lunge reach of getting in between those guys,
00:25:34.980
I will say as a long time advocate for political activism, everybody's got to be careful.
00:25:42.900
Don't get into a physical confrontation with people.
00:25:46.020
I don't care what your politics are because one, it's wrong.
00:25:54.260
It doesn't matter if you are like the most left-wing person who wants to only eat organic
00:25:58.420
soy for the rest of your life or the most right-wing person who wants, you know, concealed carry.
00:26:05.540
Be really careful getting into physical type situations because if you do, you're going
00:26:14.820
We have got so much power politically here in Canada that is firm but peaceful that we got
00:26:30.580
Did we want to watch that second Charlie Angus clip as well?
00:26:36.340
So this is Charlie Angus, a long-time member of parliament with the New Democrats,
00:26:41.460
and he's being asked by a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
00:26:44.100
I can't quite hear her voice, so I can't tell who it is.
00:26:49.060
Charlie, can you just talk to us about what happened to Mr. Singh and what your concerns are?
00:26:53.140
Well, we have the leader of a national party stepping out in a parking lot on Parliament Hill
00:26:58.420
and facing a confrontation and having to be there by himself while security stands and watches him.
00:27:04.740
We're dealing right now with an increasingly dangerous and toxic mix for politicians of all stripes.
00:27:11.860
I've had to run many gauntlets where I just have not felt safe at all.
00:27:19.060
I think what we've seen is a ramping up of the politics of intimidation from the Conservatives.
00:27:27.860
The last threat that I just dealt with that I'm dealing with police,
00:27:31.140
the person who came at me was basically quoting Pierre Pauliev and Daniel Smith.
00:27:35.940
You know, Liberal voters aren't threatening me to kill me.
00:27:43.620
I've interviewed Mr. Angus many times, long time member of Parliament.
00:27:50.820
I have personally witnessed people getting too far into other people's faces
00:27:56.660
for real on any side of the political spectrum.
00:27:59.700
I was actually, when I was a Sun News Network reporter out in New Brunswick,
00:28:03.860
I actually had to give a deposition in court, which led to a conviction.
00:28:08.820
Because what many would describe as a left-wing group were threatening to lock me in my car,
00:28:18.900
So, nobody has the monopoly on going too far and crossing lines when it comes to politics,
00:28:26.100
And so, my main sentence will be here, we have got so much power as Canadians in Canada,
00:28:32.660
make sure we keep it on this side of the good line.
00:28:35.380
Because otherwise, it gets misconstrued, and then people get a bad rep.
00:28:46.900
Firstly, I mean, you know Angus better than me, obviously, Chris,
00:28:50.420
but I was surprised how critical he was of the security there.
00:28:54.660
Because he was just basically, he spent half the clip, maybe portions we didn't see,
00:29:00.740
but just critiquing the security for letting that even happen,
00:29:03.940
and not just getting in between them immediately, I suppose.
00:29:06.980
But maybe they were less concerned because of the way Singh turned around.
00:29:13.380
And I was reading online that I guess he's a pretty high-level jujitsu practicer, let's call it.
00:29:21.380
So, I do think if the pedestrian were more aggressive, they all seemed pretty passive.
00:29:26.660
But I definitely took that as a surprise with Angus there.
00:29:31.220
Although that may be coming from, obviously, we've seen some pretty scary things.
00:29:36.020
happening with politicians recently, especially in the States with Donald Trump.
00:29:40.100
Obviously, he recently survived two assassination attempts.
00:29:43.380
So, you'd think that security, given what was happening down there, would be more prudent
00:29:48.740
with these kind of things, and probably wouldn't have let it get to this level.
00:29:55.620
And then just touching briefly on what Singh said, I was surprised because he said,
00:30:00.820
And I'm surprised the man didn't respond and say, well, have you looked in the mirror, Jagmeet?
00:30:05.700
You're the one propping up the liberal government, who you claim to hate, who you spend every day
00:30:14.100
I think, yeah, I think it's important to note that this wasn't a physical confrontation.
00:30:20.100
It was an unbecoming comment from somebody there.
00:30:22.900
We don't know who, it doesn't really show in the camera.
00:30:26.260
And it was Jagmeet Singh that turned around and approached this individual, got in his face,
00:30:43.060
And Charlie Angus, one of the most divisive MPs of the NDP caucus, he's talking about,
00:30:51.460
oh, look, the conservatives are doing this and that.
00:30:54.100
They're trying to raise the temperature on things, and immediately goes into a divisive
00:31:00.500
I actually looked on his YouTube page about a week ago.
00:31:03.380
He was in Colombia in Bogota at the Pan American Conference.
00:31:09.060
And he used that opportunity with a delegation of MPs, including liberal MPs, to blast conservative
00:31:16.740
He says there's a threat of the far right enveloping the world and all this stuff.
00:31:21.620
So this is a guy who I think has an element of hypocrisy.
00:31:25.460
And he's using this incident for political gain.
00:31:33.700
And Jagmeet Singh was right to be offended by somebody calling him those words.
00:31:42.580
It wasn't a true threat to the safety of Jagmeet Singh.
00:31:47.380
And I think there's a lot of falsities in what Charlie Angus said.
00:31:50.820
He said that the security was just watching by.
00:31:53.780
As you mentioned, Chris, they were within arm's reach.
00:32:01.700
It's one of those situations, again, just to clarify for people who haven't been to Ottawa,
00:32:08.500
So you as a peaceful citizen have a right to stand there and speak your mind,
00:32:15.780
to protest, to put up a sign, as long as it isn't, you know,
00:32:21.380
You have a right to be there as part of free expression.
00:32:26.420
Again, though, I will caution people, make sure you keep it on the right side of the line,
00:32:31.060
on the correct side of the line, because otherwise things will escalate.
00:32:36.020
And then your entire purpose, whatever it is, like I said, organic food or gun rights,
00:32:42.980
whatever it is, will then get kind of colored in that same light based on what happens.
00:32:51.460
It's literally on Parliament Hill with the Parliamentary Press Gallery right there,
00:32:58.180
So again, getting back actually to our original topic, really briefly with the carbon tax,
00:33:04.740
Okay, so you can peacefully send emails and phone calls and letters and go to rallies
00:33:12.820
And then all of a sudden, an election comes up, you achieve your goal.
00:33:17.060
Okay, no pushes or shoves happened, you achieve your goal.
00:33:21.780
That is really one of the most beautiful things about Canada's participation in politics.
00:33:26.340
And that's what we mean by get off the bench, get in the arena and make sure you're active.
00:33:30.500
And so again, I just wanted to put a caution flag down on this free communications advice,
00:33:35.380
folks, free activism advice, make sure you keep your powder dry on this stuff.
00:33:39.700
Did we want to get to debt? Or did we still want to chat about what happened on Parliament Hill?
00:33:43.380
Yeah, no, I think we can move on to debt, which I can discuss here if we want.
00:33:48.820
Really briefly, I understand why people are mad.
00:33:54.020
I understand why the common person is ticked off.
00:33:56.900
And I think it would benefit political leaders to really listen to people.
00:34:01.940
Don't dismiss them when they're saying things like, I can barely pay my rent.
00:34:07.060
Um, half of Canadians are within 200 bucks of not being able to make their minimum payments,
00:34:12.020
minimum payments on their bills. We have record demand for food banks. These are all real things.
00:34:18.980
And if you keep dismissing people saying that doesn't matter, people are going to get mad.
00:34:24.980
And the debt is a perfect example. We have now officially doubled our debt. It's,
00:34:30.180
I think 1.2 trillion dollars. Yeah, so just a quick point. I wanted to add,
00:34:35.780
there's no self-awareness, no self-reflection from the NDP who propped up the Liberal government.
00:34:42.820
They point fingers at everybody else except for themselves. Never any single moment of self-reflection.
00:34:52.580
Until an election comes around, and then hopefully we can get them singing from the right hymn book.
00:34:56.820
So, um, Isaac, you wanted to jump in on the debt?
00:34:59.540
Yeah. So this actually came from calculations done by the Canadian taxpayers federation that
00:35:04.900
the national debt officially reached 1.232 trillion dollars on August 30th. And when I saw this news,
00:35:11.220
it was shocking. There's something about the word or the number, let's say a trillion dollars. It's,
00:35:16.740
it's, it's hard to even conceptualize that amount of money. So yeah, when Justin Trudeau first took office
00:35:22.820
in November, 2015, Canada's federal debt was 616 billion. So now we've officially doubled and as debt
00:35:30.420
has doubled, so too has food insecurity, uh, housing costs have increased about 63% and crime had
00:35:38.180
increased too. So by, by 2023, 24, the federal debt had reached 1.215 trillion. So we're, we're getting very
00:35:45.300
close, but then, uh, the CTF who provided me with their calculations show that the debt has been
00:35:50.180
increasing 39.8 billion dollars a year, which is 109 million dollars a day. So this was the way that
00:35:56.580
this was calculated that the debt officially doubled on the 30th of August. And according to
00:36:02.820
your organization, Chris's, uh, federal debt clock, the debt costs each Canadian $31,000. And more
00:36:10.820
importantly, perhaps interest charges on that debt will cost 54 billion this year. Uh, the PBO, the
00:36:17.220
parliamentary budget officer, he actually revealed that liberals won't balance the budget until 2040.
00:36:21.940
And in that interim, the debt interest charges will cost Canadians almost $850 billion. I mean,
00:36:28.980
this is insane, this coming out of the federal government. However, some provinces have seen
00:36:35.220
good news, uh, recently with their fiscal, their most recent fiscal updates, most recently coming
00:36:41.620
from New Brunswick who saw their surplus reach over double the initial projections for this fiscal year.
00:36:47.140
So now they're at $500 million. Uh, that followed shortly after Alberta's fiscal update where their
00:36:55.540
surplus rose almost seven fold by 2.5 billion from their initial projections. And just a quick converse
00:37:04.340
now going back to BC, their deficit rose, which is not good, uh, $1.1 billion to $9 billion. So
00:37:12.180
we see all these provinces, uh, excelling and then BC doing the exact opposite. So I don't,
00:37:18.180
I don't know what's going on in BC, but things are definitely going from bad to worse over there.
00:37:22.100
Yeah. Yeah. Cause what do you think about that? Well, with the BC stuff, it's, it's outstanding
00:37:30.100
because like they, they spend all of this money and federally, right. And we're getting worse
00:37:35.140
outcomes. What are we spending money for when opioid addiction is high? All the deaths are going up.
00:37:43.140
When you have homelessness going up, people can't afford homes. The outcomes are not matching the amount
00:37:49.540
of money we're dumping into programs that have been proven ineffective. And it's astounding. And
00:37:56.020
just to jump back to the carbon tax, I think a reason that premier David Eby doesn't want to
00:38:02.740
wholly write off the carbon tax and shut it down is because he knows he needs to collect that money
00:38:08.500
to pay for all of these programs that he's introducing before the election to get reelected.
00:38:13.460
He wants to keep it around because it's a nice cash cow for his government to keep spending money.
00:38:18.660
And we're not only in a deficit, we're getting into debt for all spending, which is even worse.
00:38:25.220
Yeah. Big time to give you some, uh, parameters on the amount. Cause like you said, it's hard to
00:38:31.300
imagine a trillion. So Scrooge McDuck style, if you had a big vat full of loonies, okay. And you're
00:38:39.060
swimming around in the loonies and you started counting them for the debt, it would take you 30,000 years
00:38:46.660
to count to one trillion. That is how much federal debt we're in. I know my skin's crawling.
00:38:52.500
It's really bad. Um, as far as, uh, nine, $9 billion, uh, deficit we're looking at in BC
00:39:01.460
quick calculation that would pay the annual salary of 45,000 paramedics and 45,000 cops.
00:39:09.220
Oops. Not kidding. Or if you don't want to do that, say 45,000 carpenters, whatever makes
00:39:15.700
$3,000 a year, really easy way to do that math. That is brutal. Um, as far as the federal debt goes
00:39:23.220
again, doubling the debt. So just kind of visualize that like picture all the previous
00:39:29.780
prime ministers like Harper, Mulroney, the first Trudeau, even Diefenbaker, Pearson, all the way back
00:39:37.140
down the railroad to Sir John A. Macdonald. Okay. Picture all of their governments and their debts
00:39:43.780
through times of world wars and depressions, you name it, bad stuff happening. Picture all that debt,
00:39:49.860
double it. That's what this current incarnation of the Trudeau government has done in less than a
00:39:56.260
decade. It's astonishing. And just touching briefly on what you mentioned there, um,
00:40:02.820
cause men, I saw that the BC government was expected to collect $2.6 billion in revenue from
00:40:08.420
the carbon tax this fiscal year. Uh, so I don't know what they're going to do losing that key source
00:40:15.780
of income and their deficit is climbing. Uh, yeah, Chris, how, how are they going to supplement
00:40:19.540
$2.6 billion in revenue? I mean, you can't just pull that out of thin air.
00:40:24.020
They can stop wasting money and they can lower their taxes so that more people can afford to live
00:40:29.700
there. And so then they move there and then their income taxes increases their pot. It's amazing what
00:40:36.340
happens when politicians actually clue in and realize that if they get, if they lower, reduce regulations
00:40:42.580
and cut taxes, people come there. It's like a beacon, people come there and with them, they bring
00:40:48.580
their jobs, they bring their small businesses, they pay their income taxes and all boats rise.
00:40:53.540
It really, I'm a born British Columbia and born and raised there. I worked out in Mordor for a long
00:40:58.100
time in Ottawa, but now here I am in Alberta. Um, BC has no business running a $9 billion deficit. They
00:41:05.540
don't, they are literally sitting on gold mines. Like they have got all of the natural resources.
00:41:12.500
Like it should embarrass them how much riches they have beneath their feet. It is. And they've got a
00:41:18.020
young, hardworking population, lots of families. They're ready to roll up their sleeves and do stuff.
00:41:22.980
Like it is just offensive that the BC government has run a $9 billion deficit. They've got no excuses.
00:41:31.060
Um, did we want to get onto, um, mortally embarrassing me or do we want to wait?
00:41:37.540
So the department of national defense, um, I can't even, so they're apparently buying supplies
00:41:45.140
for certain rooms that may or may not need them. My entire point in this is that, okay, just briefly,
00:41:52.100
I'm very rodeo girl, but I've got a strong Marilla Cuthbert streak in me. So this segment might kill me.
00:41:58.820
So if I die, um, this YouTube video will probably go viral and it's all for the greater good.
00:42:04.340
Who wants to take this away? Gentlemen. Sure. I can, I can, uh, brief it pretty quickly. Okay.
00:42:11.380
Uh, so essentially in December, the federal government introduced changes, a directive,
00:42:17.140
essentially under the labor code that required all federally regulated workplaces, including crown
00:42:23.220
corporations, et cetera, to supply, uh, all washrooms, including men's rooms with feminine hygiene
00:42:30.580
products. And the big attention was on the military. So we have military bases across Canada where the
00:42:38.980
men's rooms have tampon and pad dispensers. And we had an a tip we received recently that showed,
00:42:47.300
well, first of all, there was, as soon as this directive went into place,
00:42:50.660
there was incidents of vandalism. People were removing the, the receptacles from the wall. They
00:42:56.100
were, you know, putting question marks on it, drawing like little things on onto these things,
00:43:01.380
showing their protest against this government decision. But the department of national defense,
00:43:07.620
a tip showed that they actually wanted to investigate this as a hate crime. So they prompted
00:43:14.740
the military police, uh, particularly the hate crime and extremism unit and send several complaints
00:43:21.620
about this act. What I think is essentially an act of protest against the government directive.
00:43:26.900
And fortunately the military police said, this is nonsense. There's no evidence that this is actually
00:43:33.220
constitutes any sort of hate crime rather than just vandalisms and petty, you know, theft,
00:43:38.980
if you want to call it that because they were disappearing. But the funniest part of the story
00:43:42.980
was that military officials actually misinterpreted these tampons disappearing as, uh, indicative of
00:43:50.500
high demand and high use. So one janitor was refilling the tampon dispensers in the men's room twice a day
00:43:58.100
because he was so stunned that they were, you know, flying off the shelf. All the male soldiers and cadets
0.57
00:44:04.420
were taking these home with them or, or, or, or presumably using them. I hope that what happened
00:44:10.820
to these products that went missing was that they were, you know, taken home to their spouses or even
00:44:17.140
better donated to women's shelters. I think that's the, would be the, uh, fairytale ending of this,
00:44:23.620
this story. Yeah. Those are good things to hope for. I'd say, Cosmin, you know, just thinking about that,
00:44:30.580
someone arriving in that conclusion that, uh, the demand is so high that you have to refill it
00:44:35.060
twice a day in the men's bathroom of a military base where historically these are very masculine
00:44:40.900
men as you'd want your army to be, uh, not whomever would be using tampons in a men's room. So it just
0.55
00:44:49.460
makes me think that they didn't even think, stop to think about it for a second, because if they had,
00:44:54.100
I I'd assume that they'd immediately arrive at the conclusion that any sane person would,
00:44:59.300
that these tampons are clearly being discarded. So, I mean, reading those quotes in your article,
00:45:05.220
when I was reading your exclusive there, Cosmin, I mean, I laughed out loud literally because I
00:45:09.220
couldn't believe that, that they had arrived at that conclusion. And Chris, just to get you involved,
00:45:15.380
uh, I think there is a spending element to this story. We don't know the exact cost of this, but it
00:45:20.980
just makes me wonder like how many people does this affect? I'm sure there's a few of like a,
00:45:26.660
a small percentage of people who actually might be using these for legitimate purposes, but all that
00:45:32.180
money that, that goes to maintaining stock to, you know, install getting janitors to install these
00:45:37.700
things and, and the maintenance, et cetera, the supplies, how, like we could be spending that money
00:45:44.580
on soldiers who, who have to buy their own equipment while on military, uh, missions abroad,
00:45:50.660
uh, on bettering the situation of military families who can't find housing. These are
00:45:56.900
like central problems that the military is facing. And I think it would do more for recruitment to
00:46:03.140
address things like, you know, treating our military families and veterans with respect than this,
00:46:09.060
you know, superficial, ideologically inclined sort of woke equity initiative that like it's like,
00:46:16.660
what is this? Like, it seems to be a bandaid on a problem that is systemic and, and really is at the
00:46:22.820
foundation of what's going on with the Canadian armed forces. I think we had a recent example. I
00:46:28.180
can't remember the numbers on it where they weren't even able to source proper sleeping bags for the armed
00:46:33.940
forces, uh, guys and gals, because they weren't temperature appropriate. And somebody said just
00:46:38.980
a beautiful line, which I want to use all the time at the CTF. Why didn't they just go to Canadian tire?
00:46:45.140
And it's exactly that sort of question. I'm serious. That applies to all of this.
00:46:49.860
The government is really bad at doing stuff like really bad. They couldn't organize a two-car parade
00:46:57.540
as Milton Friedman put it. If you put them in charge of the Sahara desert in about a year,
00:47:01.700
they'd have a shortage of sand. So this is just the worst way, obviously, to go about something
00:47:07.460
that they think is a problem. They can't find a proper solution that, you know, helps everybody
00:47:12.340
involved. And I'm just cringing for many reasons, but also cringing at the price tag. Cosmin, have you
00:47:19.300
filed or are you going to file a tips or FOIs to find out the price tag on this thing?
00:47:25.540
Yeah, I think that's the intention. We should definitely look into that. And I suspect it'll,
00:47:31.300
it'll be pretty pricey. I've heard also from people at these bases that they're not even
00:47:36.900
resupplying these anymore because of these incidents. They've kind of given up, you know,
00:47:41.700
they followed the directive, installed the actual dispenser there. But by this point,
00:47:46.900
some bases seem to have just given up on the entire thing, which I think would probably be the
00:47:51.940
best thing is just cut your losses by this point. It's not, you know, there are other ways to address
00:47:57.940
an issue like that than just doing this wholesale. Every single base needs this.
0.88
00:48:03.300
To your point on that. And again, I think this is where some folks get caught up in intention.
00:48:10.100
So for example, with the whole school food program that the Trudeau government is trying to push
00:48:14.420
through. Yes, it's going to be a colossal waste of money in a disaster. We know that because the
00:48:18.820
government's trying to do something. So everybody just, you know, take the retail price, quadruple it,
00:48:24.580
and, you know, put in some shady deals there and you've got a government situation.
00:48:28.580
My point here though is actual outcome without the government involved. So for example, with the
00:48:35.060
school food program, we've got this. Like parents who ever hear about a kid that is hungry at school.
00:48:43.220
Oh my gosh. Like the office is covered in sandwiches and milks and granola bars and moms and dads pack extra
00:48:51.460
sandwiches for their kid's buddy at school. Like church groups get involved. Faith groups get
00:48:56.180
involved. Like local solutions that are earnest and heartfelt work. Work. We do not need the federal
00:49:05.940
government from, you know, 30,000 feet up trying to solve a problem with taxpayers' money and failing at
00:49:14.340
it. Because it's obviously failing too. So it's failing and it's wasting taxpayers' money and it's just
00:49:20.900
upsetting a lot of people. So again, I think it's a good comparison between something that could be
00:49:25.780
arguably well-intentioned, which then goes way off the rails because they aren't directly connected on
00:49:30.660
the ground to the issue. Is that enough fun for today? I think so. I had fun. I mostly did. I didn't
00:49:41.940
die. I'm glad I'm still breathing and talking. Okay guys, if anybody wants more information, of course,
00:49:47.780
go to the True North website and you can read all of these awesome articles. You saw all the
00:49:51.780
screenshots up there. If you want to completely nerd out on the carbon tax, head on over to
00:49:57.300
taxpayer.com. We did like so many articles on this over the last 10 years. Folks can read up on things
00:50:03.060
like emissions and how much it's actually costing you. And folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
00:50:08.020
Thanks for all of your comments online. Be sure to keep them coming. And until next time,
00:50:26.980
I thought I'd like kept it pretty family friendly. You did. I've never said that word. So here we are.
00:50:37.460
I've managed to live 46 years and never said that word. Thank you both of you guys for talking about