Off the Record - Guilbeault wants ANOTHER carbon tax

00:00:00.000 I just hate blocking the flag's crest.

00:00:04.480 What could it possibly be?

00:00:06.480 I can't tell anymore that Isaac's covering part of it.

00:00:09.500 That's right.

00:00:13.480 When I was growing up in elementary school,

00:00:15.560 people said that it looked like two faces coming together on edges of it.

00:00:19.860 If you look at the white part instead of the red part,

00:00:23.100 and I can't unsee it.

00:00:24.620 It was in the fourth grade.

00:00:26.660 I tried to look funny, but it's too big.

00:00:28.740 It's too up close.

00:00:29.440 I can't see.

00:00:30.460 Well, next time you look at it,

00:00:31.880 you will see that it looks like two people with their heads together kind of arguing.

00:00:35.800 Now, Chris, you're probably old enough like I am to recall when,

00:00:41.940 at least in elementary school, we sang the national anthem,

00:00:45.760 I think every single day is how we started.

00:00:48.220 And once a week, we sang God Save the Queen, now God Save the King.

00:00:53.740 Isaac, was that something that your school was doing when you were growing up?

00:00:58.600 No.

00:00:59.260 So I went to French immersion school, and we sang the national anthem every morning in basically half English, half French.

00:01:06.120 But we never did any religious things because it was a public school, not a Catholic school.

00:01:11.180 I mean, I would suggest that God Save the King isn't particularly religious.

00:01:15.840 It's the anthem of the monarch of Canada.

00:01:19.620 But, you know, yeah, I would be surprised if kids in school nowadays would even know any of the words to that song.

00:01:27.520 So either of them.

00:01:28.720 People often refer to it as the royal anthem as well.

00:01:32.020 For the first time, I sang God Save the King out loud at the most recent Remembrance Day ceremony here in Lethbridge.

00:01:40.240 Last time I wasn't able to because it was too upsetting.

00:01:43.280 So because you're raised singing God Save the Queen and now the Queen is gone.

00:01:46.540 I'm old enough, totally dating myself.

00:01:50.340 We sang O Canada.

00:01:53.260 We sang God Save the Queen once a week.

00:01:55.420 And we said the Lord's Prayer.

00:01:57.740 Wow.

00:01:58.400 In public school, in elementary school, right up until the fourth grade in British Columbia.

00:02:03.520 So I guess I'm kind of dating myself.

00:02:05.720 All right.

00:02:05.940 Did we want to get this thing started, gentlemen?

00:02:07.480 Welcome to Off the Record here at True North.

00:02:17.600 My name is Chris Sims.

00:02:18.640 I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:02:21.780 I'm joined here by our lovely regular guests, Isaac and William.

00:02:25.960 Gentlemen, we've got so much to talk about.

00:02:28.540 I just got the paper version of my Epoch Times or Epoch Times.

00:02:32.520 I never pronounced that properly.

00:02:33.960 And it's got the huge Trump win.

00:02:35.520 We're going to get to that.

00:02:36.380 It's on the front page.

00:02:37.840 But I really wanted to kick things off first with something that we at the Taxpayers Federation noticed.

00:02:43.260 Pardon me for barging in on it.

00:02:45.040 But so, you know, Environment Minister Stephen Giebo, you know how he just loves carbon taxes?

00:02:51.720 Well, he's at the whatever UN climate summit where they fly there in their jets and they burn all this stuff and they waste all your money.

00:02:59.160 He's at some summit and he's actually pushing for a global carbon tax.

00:03:05.100 So two of his favorite things, world government and carbon taxes come together.

00:03:11.520 And there he is at this UN climate summit pushing for a global carbon tax on shipping.

00:03:18.060 So shipping typically is goods that are shipped by cargo that go across the ocean.

00:03:26.020 And he's proposing to do this and charge every country in the world that can afford it.

00:03:32.120 That's a sliding scale.

00:03:33.100 And that the money would, of course, go to poor countries for them to somehow reduce their carbon footprint or whatever.

00:03:41.700 We know largely that this would just get wasted.

00:03:44.200 Now, I did need to point out that the folks, the pointy heads at the UN have been pushing for a global carbon tax on things like shipping for years.

00:03:54.480 They keep on trying this stuff.

00:03:55.700 It's the same thing when they try to get people to eat crickets or not eat as much red meat or whatever.

00:04:01.360 But this time they have found an ardent dance partner because there has never been a carbon tax that Minister Gebo has made eye contact with that he has not fallen madly in love with.

00:04:12.600 What do you guys think?

00:04:13.680 Do you think that this is a chance that they might be able to convince them to actually put this thing through?

00:04:18.840 Like, do you think they'd get countries signing on to this?

00:04:21.860 William, do you want to take a crack at this?

00:04:23.080 You know, this COP conference just, you know, makes me cringe every time I hear it happening.

00:04:29.120 It might as well be called COP of Feel Conference because every time they have one, they want to reach into your pants and pick your wallet and grab a few more dollars for whatever crazy project that they've just come up with.

00:04:40.320 So, yeah, I mean, you know, if you ask around, and I think the U.S. election really brought home the case of this, people aren't exactly saying, I have just too much money in my pockets.

00:04:51.040 I have too much disposable income and not enough things to spend it on.

00:04:55.980 My rent is too low.

00:04:57.280 My groceries are too cheap.

00:04:59.300 Transportation is too cheap and affordable.

00:05:02.340 And so what I really need is a big government tax to come and make my life even more expensive to get rid of some of my excess cash.

00:05:10.440 It's, you know, it would be ludicrous if it weren't quite so criminal and sad.

00:05:16.880 And, yeah, you know, we're coming up on Christmas.

00:05:19.240 It's the busiest shopping time of the year.

00:05:21.580 A lot of people are buying things from faraway places that need to be shipped.

00:05:25.900 You know, my family's waiting for Black Friday and Amazon to put on some deals to look at what we're going to buy for my nephews.

00:05:33.000 And now we're going to make that more expensive because everything that gets shipped is going to have a new carbon tax.

00:05:39.700 And then you're going to send it to developing countries who, of course, their first priority isn't the fact that huge swaths of their populations are unemployed and can't afford health care and maybe don't have enough to eat.

00:05:50.940 We're going to pay them to have the privilege of releasing slightly less carbon.

00:05:54.760 And, you know, I'm absolutely certain that that money won't be spent on other priorities, you know, because because when I talk to people who work with third world charity groups, they're always telling me it's all about the carbon, not about not about food and shelter and health care.

00:06:09.440 Clean water, you know, luxuries like that.

00:06:12.020 Isaac, what was your take on this?

00:06:14.340 Yeah, you know, Chris, I was trying to go through in my head and think to myself, which of the countries at COP29 here would even fathom agreeing to something like this?

00:06:23.600 Of course, Donald Trump, President-elect Donald Trump hasn't had his inauguration date yet, but I'm thinking, imagine Guibo trying to pitch this to Trump.

00:06:31.800 I mean, he would obliterate him.

00:06:33.200 There's absolutely no chance that Trump would do something like this.

00:06:36.600 In fact, we've seen over the recent days how Trump has been coming out, in fact, in partnership with Daniel Smith as recently as today, on prioritizing making energy as cheap as possible because he understands that is how you make a strong economy.

00:06:53.600 Not by making it expensive.

00:06:55.020 And by the way, we still haven't seen any evidence from the liberals or anyone else that this carbon tax does anything to reduce carbon emissions because our carbon emissions keep going up.

00:07:05.040 But so, too, does the carbon tax.

00:07:06.940 So, really, there's no logical reason that anyone would sign on to this, I think, and we'll see what happens at COP.

00:07:13.260 No, you nailed it there.

00:07:15.100 To be clear, here in Canada, the carbon tax is a disaster, but the government just keeps on digging.

00:07:22.200 Like any sane person with an ounce of common sense, if they dig themselves into that whole first job, stop digging.

00:07:28.440 But they just keep on going for it, and now they're turning their shovels on other countries, or at least trying to.

00:07:33.000 So, here in Canada, we actually already have three carbon taxes.

00:07:38.200 We have the first carbon tax, which is often referred to as the retail carbon tax.

00:07:42.600 That's the one that adds like $13 per fill-up of a minivan, $20 per fill-up of a pickup truck, over $400.

00:07:50.740 This winter alone, here in Alberta, the carbon tax is going to cost us to heat our homes with natural gas.

00:07:56.180 Truckers, they're costing like $200 extra, extra, just for filling up with diesel, and that's just the one carbon tax.

00:08:04.700 We have the second carbon tax, which is the highest in British Columbia.

00:08:08.540 It's a form of government fuel regulation where they basically penalize a company of how dare you, oil and gas company, produce something like oil and gas.

00:08:17.700 We're going to fine you.

00:08:19.100 And then, of course, the company takes that fine, and they pass it on down the hose, and that's you, again, filling up your vehicle.

00:08:26.600 In British Columbia, it's on average floating costs because they do a whole bunch of weird online credits and markets going on.

00:08:33.160 It's around $0.18 extra per liter of gasoline and diesel.

00:08:37.840 Trudeau, legit, he saw British Columbia.

00:08:41.140 He saw how high their price of gasoline and diesel was, and he's like, that's awesome.

00:08:46.120 I'm going to do that across the whole country.

00:08:48.060 I'm not kidding.

00:08:48.940 He used BC as a template.

00:08:51.020 And so now we have a second carbon tax that's federal.

00:08:54.000 It's not as high as it is in BC, but we still have it.

00:08:57.240 The third carbon tax we have is often referred to as the industrial carbon tax, really similar to what I just explained with the second carbon tax.

00:09:05.060 But this time it's big companies that are paying these credits and offsets and all this other jazz.

00:09:11.100 At the end of the day, that just makes our stuff cost more.

00:09:14.680 So now we have these three carbon taxes already in Canada.

00:09:17.920 We also have record numbers of people saying they cannot make ends meet, that they're within 200 bucks of not making all their minimum payments on their bills.

00:09:28.440 That's also known as nearly going bankrupt.

00:09:30.820 OK, and we also have record demand for food banks, especially from working families.

00:09:36.120 So what the Trudeau government does is say, you know what, these carbon taxes are so super awesome and they're not reducing emissions.

00:09:42.660 You're absolutely right, Isaac.

00:09:44.100 So let's make the whole world pay for one.

00:09:46.240 Like, it's just anyway, I have confidence that how did that go?

00:09:51.860 One of my friends said, I think a Trump size hole has been driven through that plan.

00:09:58.260 I don't think that one's going to happen.

00:10:00.580 Speaking of President-elect Trump, OK, former presidents are supposed to be given the honorific of President, William.

00:10:08.700 But he's a former president and now a president-elect.

00:10:12.440 So do we call him President-elect President Trump?

00:10:16.640 Or what do we call him now?

00:10:17.920 Just see how many times we can put the word president in front of the name Trump.

00:10:22.660 I know there'd be quite a number of people who would support that.

00:10:25.760 It is true that U.S. office holders do retain their titles for life.

00:10:31.240 But I guess in the case, it's also, though, rare to have someone who was a president then, you know, sort of leave public life, you know, voluntarily or otherwise, to then have them come back into public life.

00:10:44.720 Again, it's only happened a handful of times in U.S. history.

00:10:47.080 Yeah. So let's just I'm just going to keep it simple.

00:10:50.520 President Trump, who is not yet inaugurated, he is making good on some of his promises.

00:10:57.640 He has assigned Elon Musk.

00:11:00.240 If you don't know who that dude is, I can't help you.

00:11:02.900 And he's also assigned Vivek Ramsey, who is a kind of a fascinating character.

00:11:08.160 He actually ran for ran for the leadership of the Republicans.

00:11:11.260 Super dynamic, interesting guy.

00:11:13.080 What I find fascinating is he's appointed these two gentlemen to what would you call it, guys, a task force, a mission to reduce government waste and improve government efficiency.

00:11:26.260 And the acronym, I'm not kidding for folks who are on X or Twitter, is Department of Government Efficiency.

00:11:35.480 Doge.

00:11:37.060 OK, this is an actual tweet from Elon Musk.

00:11:40.420 I mean, the guy can definitely move things.

00:11:42.920 It's not just rockets.

00:11:43.840 Do we so that's music to Taxpayers Federation ears.

00:11:48.940 The idea that you could actually go through departments, get rid of entire departments if they're inefficient and just a big waste of money. 0.99

00:11:56.060 Find actual waste like we have here at the Taxpayers Federation where we spent taxpayers money, you know, sending sex toys to a show in Germany, like completely stupid things. 0.95

00:12:06.260 Do we think this will make meaningful change, though? 0.99

00:12:10.440 And can they?

00:12:12.420 Because the way that their system is set up, don't they have to get this stuff through Congress?

00:12:17.780 And will they be able to do that?

00:12:19.500 Like, I actually don't know.

00:12:23.120 Yeah, Isaac, do you want to grab that one?

00:12:25.080 Yeah, here's what I'll say, because obviously, and I'm sure many people felt the same way when when I first heard about this dog or dog.

00:12:33.240 I don't know how it's pronounced, dog task force or department.

00:12:38.080 The first thing I, of course, thought of was Argentina leader, Javier Malay, who his whole campaign was based on the fact that he would slash public service to the bone, essentially.

00:12:51.320 And I think we have a clip.

00:12:52.700 In fact, do we want to show that right now?

00:12:54.220 Oh, yes, we do play that.

00:12:55.840 Ministerio de Turismo y Deportes, afuera.

00:12:59.080 Ministerio de Cultura, afuera.

00:13:01.280 Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible, afuera.

00:13:04.580 Ministerio de las Mujeres y Género y Diversidad, afuera.

00:13:07.540 Ministerio de Obras Públicas, afuera.

00:13:10.600 Aunque te resistas.

00:13:11.880 Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología e Innovación, afuera.

00:13:15.200 Ministerio de Trabajo, Empleo y Seguridad Social, afuera.

00:13:18.600 Ministerio de Educación, adoctrinamiento, afuera.

00:13:22.520 Ministerio de Transporte, afuera.

00:13:24.700 Ministerio de Salud, afuera.

00:13:27.520 Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, afuera.

00:13:31.540 Se acabó el curro de la política.

00:13:35.020 ¡Viva la libertad, carajo!

00:13:37.860 Yeah, so obviously...

00:13:39.260 I have that thing in my phone.

00:13:41.900 Malay's been in office now for just about a year.

00:13:44.540 I think he became the president in December 2023.

00:13:47.880 So I was curious what has slashing these public services done.

00:13:52.120 And I just looked quickly online, you know, and I seen AP came out yesterday saying Argentina has seen the lowest inflation that it's had in the last three years.

00:14:04.000 Okay.

00:14:04.520 What else?

00:14:05.540 Their GDP per capita at a record.

00:14:07.520 I mean, all the things you'd hope for.

00:14:09.800 So obviously this is not having a negative effect and may, in fact, be having a positive effect.

00:14:15.040 I'm curious to see if similar cuts would have the same effect in America.

00:14:20.540 And obviously with Trump prioritizing energy development and otherwise, that is going to have a strong effect on the economy as well.

00:14:27.640 Yeah, I can say.

00:14:30.360 I think it's unclear to me how much power this new group task force agency department will have.

00:14:38.260 It doesn't look like, at least at first, they're setting it up as a fully fledged department that would have a secretary and cabinet power.

00:14:45.960 But I think one of the things it will have is an ability to expose examples of government waste and mismanagement.

00:14:54.100 And I think that public opinion pressure will be very valuable to President Trump when he starts a campaign to try and cut wasteful spending.

00:15:02.940 And I mean, you know, we have wasteful spending up in Canada.

00:15:05.820 There's a there's a ton of it, including just a massive bloated bureaucracy that has, you know, tens of thousands of more people, maybe even hundreds of thousands more than we need.

00:15:16.020 Down in the States, in some ways, it can be even worse because when they're trying to get a bill through Congress, every congressman or congresswoman will have a demand that they want to put on.

00:15:28.260 And in order to get their vote, you sometimes have to buy them.

00:15:31.780 And it means, you know, a bill for child's health care includes funding for erectile dysfunction medication or, you know, a bill to study farm products in the Midwest includes salmon fishing out in the Pacific Northwest.

00:15:49.980 There's there's all sorts of these things are called Christmas trees.

00:15:52.340 Everybody likes to hang little spending ornaments on them.

00:15:55.340 But I'm personally very excited about what the Department of Government Efficiency is going to find.

00:16:00.760 And it really takes the air out of the sails of people who talk about how government is this force for good in the lives of everyday people, how we need government and how government spending is efficient.

00:16:12.480 And when the government tackles problems, that's the best way to solve it.

00:16:16.740 You know, the late great Margaret Thatcher, my personal political hero, some minister came to her and said, we've, you know, we've identified this problem.

00:16:25.380 And his solution was to create a new ministry that would be responsible for this problem.

00:16:30.980 And she looked him in the eye and said, if the existence of the ministry and the minister depends on this problem continuing to exist, then it will never be solved.

00:16:40.420 We will never rid ourselves of it once jobs depend on having this problem be around.

00:16:46.100 So I say Godspeed to the new Department of Government Efficiency.

00:16:50.540 And please find some places to cut wasteful spending.

00:16:55.020 That would be great.

00:16:56.260 Yeah, I think I've got hope in that.

00:16:58.780 I think this will change the momentum and the tone.

00:17:01.900 The very idea that they're now openly saying we need Ron Paul in here to come help.

00:17:07.320 Like for the longest time, Dr. Ron Paul, bless his heart, has been trying to reduce government spending, reduce government waste, expose government corruption, hold government to account.

00:17:16.820 And for the longest time, also, it's, you know, advocacy organizations similar to ours in the United States, like the Americans for Tax Reform with Grover Norquist, trying to restrain spending.

00:17:27.660 And there's always been, you know, a healthy push behind that.

00:17:31.160 But it hasn't gone mainstream or viral in an awful long time.

00:17:36.040 And to be able to see something like small government, like dramatically reducing the size and scope and power and spending of government, to make that shiny and attractive again is huge.

00:17:50.780 I think we do have a clip.

00:17:52.360 Do we want to play that clip of Vivek Ramsey?

00:17:54.260 It's just really inspiring.

00:17:55.720 Let's roll that.

00:17:56.280 Reject the impulse.

00:17:59.100 It's going to happen in the next four years.

00:18:00.620 We will face temptation to say that we want to replace that left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state.

00:18:06.360 The right answer to that question is hell no.

00:18:09.000 The right answer is to dismantle the nanny state.

00:18:10.960 We will face the temptation to say we want to replace the left-wing regulatory state with a right-wing regulatory state.

00:18:18.560 The right answer to that is hell no.

00:18:20.380 We want to dismantle the regulatory state.

00:18:22.640 We will face the temptation to say, hey, we want to staff the bureaucracies with our own people and claim that we want to reform them.

00:18:29.860 No, the right answer is to get down, get in there and shut down the bureaucracy.

00:18:34.680 That's how we save this country.

00:18:36.640 That's what our founding fathers fought for in 1776.

00:18:39.920 And if we do, then we don't have to be this nation in decline anymore that we've become.

00:18:48.100 Amazing hearing that.

00:18:49.660 And for the handful of folks who are watching who like big government and they think that we need big government to take care of us and do everything, I just heartily encourage you to really think again.

00:19:00.960 Ask yourself if whatever it is that needs to be done could be done better by honest, earnest private citizens or a charity group or an advocacy organization.

00:19:10.820 I'll give you a quick example, and I won't get too graphic because otherwise I might start crying.

00:19:15.620 You guys might remember that there was a case in British Columbia off one of the Gulf Islands where they had deer that Parks Canada wanted to get rid of.

00:19:25.240 Right.

00:19:25.420 OK, so this became kind of a, you know, it was a thing.

00:19:28.800 Right.

00:19:29.040 And kudos to the reporters in Vancouver who dug up this story.

00:19:32.640 They did a great job and they phoned us about a year ago.

00:19:35.840 So what was happening is taxpayers were paying like it was like a million dollars, something crazy.

00:19:42.060 It was a crazy amount of money for foreigners, New Zealanders, if I recall correctly, sharpshooters to shoot deer out of a circling helicopter. 0.98

00:19:53.940 OK, so I grew up in B.C.

00:19:56.120 You could get people, hunters with legal firearms to come shoot deer for free.

00:20:00.640 They will fill up their trucks themselves and bring all their gear themselves.

00:20:05.060 Just open the bag limit and your problem will be gone.

00:20:08.600 But wait, there's more.

00:20:10.760 This is where it gets really upsetting.

00:20:12.820 So they got all this pushback about them hiring people to shoot deer out of helicopters and wasting taxpayers' money doing this.

00:20:19.780 You know what they actually went and did?

00:20:21.540 They set up nets in the forest and in the meadows of this island.

00:20:30.500 They set up netting to keep the deer in a certain place.

00:20:35.980 Anyone watching this who has a lick of experience with wildlife, especially deer, knows what happened here.

00:20:42.520 These deer tangled themselves in these nets by themselves for weeks at a time and thrashed themselves to death.

00:20:51.740 That's government.

00:20:53.660 That is a perfect example of we should get the government to fix this.

00:20:57.640 No, you really shouldn't.

00:20:59.560 And the more you dig into things, the more the government screws up.

00:21:02.480 So, yes, I, for one, I keep that little doge thing on my phone because I wanted to inspire people to reduce government waste and to cut taxes.

00:21:11.040 This one's also ticking me off.

00:21:14.020 Who wants to lead off the Remembrance Day stuff?

00:21:18.040 Yeah, so hopping from the federal government's failures to the municipals, also on a broad scale,

00:21:26.080 we saw a lot of backlash across the country from woke initiatives that were implemented at Remembrance Day,

00:21:34.500 like lengthy land acknowledgements, even pro-Hamas activism,

00:21:38.880 and all of really these initiatives that overlooked the importance of Remembrance Day,

00:21:44.860 which is, of course, honoring fallen soldiers.

00:21:48.440 I think we have a picture of Harrison Faulkner.

00:21:51.920 He kind of went through the list here, if we could show that.

00:21:54.500 Yeah, this isn't by no means all-encompassing, but it really did list a lot of the good ones here.

00:22:00.840 I mean, take your pick. 0.93

00:22:05.120 I don't even know where to start because they're all as ridiculous as the last. 0.90

00:22:10.720 Is there any one of these that stands out to either view? 0.64

00:22:14.480 The one that jumped out at me at first was because a friend of mine who lives in Nova Scotia sent it to me,

00:22:19.520 was being told that active veterans, so yes, Remembrance Day is absolutely about honoring the fallen.

00:22:26.260 It's also to give a nod to our veterans who came home who were still dealing with what they saw in war,

00:22:31.800 and to tell them, don't show up in your uniform.

00:22:35.040 Like, that really got my hair standing up.

00:22:40.300 So that one really stood out.

00:22:42.580 I think there was another one where it was in Ottawa, and they sang a song in a foreign language,

00:22:48.040 which, you know, to be really clear, so taking off my Taxpayers Federation hat completely,

00:22:53.060 I used to work with Veterans Affairs Canada.

00:22:56.340 A lot of the men in my family have served in the armed forces, including in places like Cyprus.

00:23:02.160 Um, Remembrance Day ceremonies are solemn and really simple.

00:23:07.720 Like, we've been doing them this way for about 100 years, okay?

00:23:11.780 You play last post, you might have a fly pass, hopefully you have a prayer, you lay wreaths,

00:23:16.880 you know, you honor the fallen.

00:23:18.260 They're solemn and beautiful and meaningful.

00:23:20.700 You don't need to add stuff to them.

00:23:22.380 So the two that popped into my mind were telling living veterans, don't show up in your uniform,

00:23:27.060 and then also that there was a different song that was shoved into the ceremony,

00:23:32.520 I think at the last minute at a school in Ottawa.

00:23:36.940 Yeah, I mean, there were just some, you know, again, they would be laughable

00:23:41.820 if they weren't so deeply insulting and painful to people who, you know,

00:23:47.300 have friends, family members, and loved ones serving,

00:23:50.200 or who have served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:23:52.200 I did enjoy, or rather, shake my head at the example of Langley, British Columbia,

00:23:59.320 where they only had one reading from a religious text during their ceremony,

00:24:04.460 and it was a reading from the Quran, which I think a lot of people would find surprising.

00:24:10.860 You know, if you look at the people who generally have served in our armed forces,

00:24:14.480 they do represent a whole range of different religions.

00:24:18.060 But the major one, I think, would be Christianity, particularly for people who fought in, say,

00:24:22.860 World War I or World War II on behalf of our country.

00:24:26.420 So the fact that they went out of their way to pick one that doesn't represent the majority of people,

00:24:31.520 and then said, but we shall have no others, no other readings of this apart from this reading from the Quran.

00:24:36.980 And, you know, you have to wonder what goes through the minds of some of these woke politicians

00:24:43.100 when they decide to use these events in order to try and further one of their pet causes.

00:24:50.520 You know, Mayor Gondek, in my beloved city of Calgary, less beloved mayor herself,

00:24:57.220 she decided to do quite a lengthy land acknowledgement at the beginning of her Remembrance Day ceremony

00:25:03.020 and did indeed refer to the people there and the veterans themselves as settlers on colonized land.

00:25:10.300 And I think, you know, Canada has a day to, you know, reflect on Indigenous issues.

00:25:16.760 We have a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

00:25:18.640 Why are we now trying to co-opt the one day that we have, especially for veterans,

00:25:25.040 who in many cases gave, you know, the ultimate sacrifice, paid the ultimate price for our freedom and for our liberty?

00:25:33.200 Why are we now trying to co-opt this day into serving some other purpose, some other special interest,

00:25:39.000 some other woke agenda item?

00:25:41.340 I think it is, you know, not just sad, but I think, you know, deeply offensive to people who do have family members

00:25:48.440 who are serving and have served in our armed forces.

00:25:53.480 The other, I think this also speaks to a lack of understanding and knowledge of our history.

00:26:02.560 I think it's easier for people to do things like this if they haven't really thought about it

00:26:09.900 and they haven't really learned about it.

00:26:13.300 Just to put it glibly, it's easy to beak off and make something your own.

00:26:18.440 When you truly haven't empathized with what you're talking about.

00:26:22.520 And to put a pin on it, November 11th was for Armistice Day.

00:26:28.900 It was for the end of what they hoped would be the war to end all wars.

00:26:34.720 Millions of people died.

00:26:38.020 Millions of them.

00:26:39.780 Mostly young men.

00:26:41.020 And Dr. John Robson, a friend of mine, pointed something out to me years ago, and it stayed with me.

00:26:48.420 He said, it isn't just those millions of young men.

00:26:52.860 Think of the children who were never born.

00:26:56.480 Ever.

00:26:57.540 And their children.

00:26:58.720 And their children.

00:26:59.660 Until here we are right now.

00:27:01.060 And it of course also led into the Second World War.

00:27:05.420 A lot of historians are now simply referring to it as the 20th century war.

00:27:10.420 Because there was a big lull in the middle.

00:27:12.520 But the two are inextricably connected.

00:27:15.800 So I would just urge people who want to make it their day or change it or whatever.

00:27:21.380 Whatever your thing is.

00:27:22.480 It doesn't matter.

00:27:24.360 Really read about it.

00:27:26.240 Really think about it.

00:27:27.420 Imagine being someone in one of those countries or being a soldier shipped off or being their mother or being their wife or their sister.

00:27:36.420 Imagine living through that truly.

00:27:39.140 And then ask yourself if you really need to do that for a few hours in the morning on one day.

00:27:43.900 Or maybe you could wait till the next day or even in the afternoon once people have gone home.

00:27:49.160 Did we want to go to the school board?

00:27:51.180 Because this one was a little bit funny and I think I need something to cheer me up.

00:27:54.480 I do have to say that coming off a very somber topic, we, you know, now have an example of, you know, maybe we'll just revisit that first one about there's no wasteful spending in government.

00:28:06.660 Yes.

00:28:07.080 And say, oh, well, are you sure?

00:28:09.300 Because what we had recently was what I'm calling a school trustees gone wild Italy edition.

00:28:15.500 And honestly, if you if it weren't actually true, you would have a hard time making something like this up.

00:28:22.720 The and I wrote down, so I would get it right.

00:28:24.700 The Brant Haldeman Norfolk Catholic District School Board.

00:28:29.220 So this be a school district in southwestern Ontario encompassing Brant, Norfolk and Haldeman County.

00:28:36.540 Well, they have two schools that needed some art.

00:28:40.380 Specifically, they wanted some religious art.

00:28:44.040 And I guess they thought, well, if we want religious art, where do we have to go to get that?

00:28:48.540 Clearly, none is made in Canada.

00:28:50.140 None is made in North America.

00:28:52.140 The only place apparently that they could get it was Italy.

00:28:54.620 So they spent more than $50,000 on travel expenses to go to Italy for a week to buy $100,000 worth of religious art, which they subsequently brought back to Canada.

00:29:12.660 And I'll just give you a little list here.

00:29:15.000 Some of the things they spent on.

00:29:17.320 Well, one of the things I have to laugh is their trip to Italy included two nights in Germany, which is a country famous for not being Italy.

00:29:25.120 So a lot of people wonder why that was.

00:29:29.240 Well, apparently, according to the board chair who has recognized the air of his ways, it's quite a long flight from Italy, Canada to Italy.

00:29:37.440 So they needed a night to recover.

00:29:39.700 They needed a night to get caught up on the rest and on the jet lag.

00:29:43.520 And apparently, they needed one at the end of their trip as well, which explains why there's two nights in Germany in Italy.

00:29:51.800 Why they...

00:29:52.560 But, William, just a second, William.

00:29:54.080 It's not like Italy has major cities, right?

00:29:56.780 No.

00:29:56.940 Like, it doesn't have Rome or anything.

00:29:58.820 No, no, no.

00:29:59.520 I mean, Rome and Milan and Naples and none of the people.

00:30:04.020 I don't think Italy has any tourism either.

00:30:06.140 I don't think people go to Italy as tourists for these things.

00:30:09.660 That would have been way too hard.

00:30:10.680 They had to land in Germany and then commute.

00:30:12.820 For the religious art.

00:30:15.540 And so the real question is, though, would they have really been so tired given that their average flight cost was $7,000 apiece?

00:30:22.620 Which, you know, for those of us who have occasionally studied flights know that they flew business class in the nice lie-flat pods that they have at the front of the plane.

00:30:32.740 So why did they have jet lag when they spent $28,000 on their flights for these four people so that they could get a good night's sleep over the Atlantic Ocean?

00:30:45.100 They also stayed in what have been described as luxury or deluxe hotel rooms and suites during their course there.

00:30:52.820 They enjoyed a limousine ride at one point.

00:30:56.280 Maybe there was a lack of parking at the religious art factory that they were visiting.

00:31:01.480 So they rented a limo.

00:31:03.500 They enjoyed several gourmet boozy dinners, too, while they were in Italy.

00:31:09.400 Total cost coming in at $50,000.

00:31:12.140 So for anybody out there who doesn't think there's wasteful spending in government, I would just urge you to look at this example.

00:31:19.920 When places are crying out for funding for education to hire more teachers, to hire more teaching assistants, to have more resources in classrooms, well, this Brandt Haldeman Catholic School District group, they decided four people, $50,000.

00:31:34.440 I tell you, if I ever am planning a luxury trip to Italy, I want to get that school board to do my trip planning.

00:31:41.200 They know how to put on a luxury vacation.

00:31:43.540 This is excellent.

00:31:44.980 And it really puts the point on it that there is just so much waste.

00:31:48.360 And to be clear, this is just what we know about.

00:31:50.880 It's not like this is the one bad school board in all of Ontario.

00:31:54.480 No, no.

00:31:55.540 This is just the one that we've heard about.

00:31:58.080 There's tons of stuff that we've never heard about.

00:32:00.460 At the Taxpayers Federation, we do the annual Teddy Waste Awards where we hand out golden pig statues to levels of government that waste your money in spectacular fashion.

00:32:09.940 We do it to make fun of it because otherwise you'd cry.

00:32:13.200 Like, it's such a huge waste of money.

00:32:15.360 And, yeah, this sounds like, I don't know, the $100,000 or $200,000 that our federal politicians blow on airplane food.

00:32:22.320 And they say, oh, it was normal airplane food.

00:32:24.480 Meanwhile, it's stuff you can't pronounce.

00:32:25.920 It's like beef carpaccio and super fancy stuff.

00:32:29.200 And it has to be served on China plate.

00:32:31.060 Like, this is just a gross waste of taxpayers' money.

00:32:34.080 And I have to stress, it wasn't always like this.

00:32:37.340 Okay?

00:32:37.820 The reason the term public servant exists is because it used to be people like retired teachers, former police officers, local small business owners,

00:32:48.440 who donate their time for a tiny stipend, like they might get parking, they might get lunch.

00:32:55.220 But it was a tiny stipend that they were paid to be a public servant.

00:33:00.640 And now we're spending, would you say, 50 grand?

00:33:04.520 Spending them to Italy?

00:33:05.660 Just over 50 grand for the expenses, another $100,000 for the art.

00:33:10.400 This.

00:33:11.020 This is where we mean when we say government waste and too big of government because it should not be like this.

00:33:17.080 Isaac, do you remember, did you go to Italy to get art for your school?

00:33:21.320 Was that a regular field trip?

00:33:22.620 No, yeah.

00:33:23.100 I was going to say everyone, every good Catholic, practicing Catholic knows the only place to get religious art is in the Vatican City, actually, in Italy.

00:33:31.800 I'm pretty sure if this school board walked down the street to a church and just said, hey, do you guys know any art we could get?

00:33:38.440 They would have gotten it for free.

00:33:40.660 Could have maybe spent that 50 grand or 100 grand on something that would contribute to the school in some way, shape, or form.

00:33:48.620 I'm sure there are a few examples that come to mind that don't include $100,000 paintings from the Vatican City itself.

00:33:56.600 No wonder they're so expensive.

00:33:57.580 They had to go straight to the source.

00:34:02.140 And, yeah, to be clear, for people who don't know, there are shops where you can go get religious art, like, for real.

00:34:07.740 And it's beautiful.

00:34:08.880 And a lot of it is from Italy.

00:34:10.480 But you don't need to pay $50,000 to local bureaucrats from the school board to fly there, stuff themselves full of gourmet food to bring it back to you.

00:34:18.420 You can just pay for it.

00:34:19.460 And it's not that much money. 0.90

00:34:21.120 That is a ridiculous waste of money.

00:34:22.820 But I really think it's important that we highlight this sort of stuff, especially in light of what we were talking about with the movement for the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, in the United States.

00:34:33.620 If we can make cutting spending and reducing the size and power of government cool again, then we'll definitely be winning as taxpayers.

00:34:44.100 Isaac, William, thank you both so much for joining us today.

00:34:47.260 Really appreciate it.

00:34:48.180 And, folks, thank you so much for watching and listening.

00:34:50.440 Be sure to share this show with someone you know needs to hear it.

00:34:54.960 But remember, everything is off the record.

00:34:56.920 I thought of a real good question for you.

00:35:08.200 Every report and every data I've ever seen on essentially comparing public to private spending in various sectors has shown that private can do it better.

00:35:17.360 I'm wondering if you know of any examples where the public sector can actually outperform the private sector.

00:35:26.920 The only one I know on the top of my head, because I've given this a lot of thought, is we fought a lot against ICBC.

00:35:34.740 So that's the government monopoly on the auto insurance in British Columbia.

00:35:38.480 And their rates are disgusting and they're through the roof, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:35:42.040 The vast majority of the time, having private competition reduces the cost.

00:35:47.560 I don't know why, but in Saskatchewan, they have a government-controlled auto insurance monopoly, and it's cheap.

00:35:58.700 So I've basically, like, not made eye contact with it because it's, like, accidentally running on time.

00:36:04.680 So I just don't want to spook them.

00:36:06.700 Don't break it.

00:36:07.820 Yeah.

00:36:08.320 Like, it's just like, okay, I'm just going to forget that you exist.

00:36:11.000 But that's the only one.

00:36:17.560 Thank you.

Off the Record - November 15, 2024

Guilbeault wants ANOTHER carbon tax

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript