00:00:00.000Yeah, see, I thought I am very Scottish, and then I wondered how Scottish I was, and maybe it's English, and it turns out I'm, like, very distantly related to Alfred the Great.
00:00:09.000And then a whole bunch of people said, oh, billions of people are doing that, so I don't know if it's even true.
00:00:15.400Is it really, like, that, not to, like, discredit your heritage or anything, but is it really that, like, oppressive to be related to, like, a distant king or whatever?
00:00:24.580Like, is, like, a quarter of the world's population related to Genghis Khan or something like that?
00:00:30.000So, that's why I've only talked about it with my dear friends like you right now on the internet, and not spread it around.
00:00:38.060All joking aside, going back into your ancestry is pretty crazy, so that was pretty cool.
00:00:43.740But the thing I wanted to mention at the bottom of the show, if we have time, is the fact that now Canadian taxpayers own vacant land in Senegal.
00:00:51.460But I don't know if that makes us, like, an emperor or something.
00:02:05.220I listened to all, like, 52 minutes of him from Monday night.
00:02:08.900And then he did a sit-down where he talked about a lot of stuff, especially the carbon tax.
00:02:15.760And he went over again this gnard that you can magically give the government money in the form of a carbon tax, and they will magically give you more back than you paid in at no cost to you, which is not true.
00:02:26.460And then he seemed to get, like, really upset, like, ranty even, about bumper stickers and the state of politics.
00:02:34.420So, without further ado, let's listen first to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explaining, in his view, the carbon tax to all of us.
00:02:44.360We're not having real conversations around politics now.
00:02:48.500We're having, you know, seven-second TikTok videos.
00:02:52.620We're having a bumper sticker or a flag that's waving when I'm around.
00:03:00.700That's political discourse and debate.
00:03:03.160Of course, it's easy to say, tax is bad.
00:03:11.120Sorry, I don't know why I sounded like Frankenstein when I was doing that, but okay.
00:04:18.220You ask them a question and they just start talking about some random virtue-signaling thing that might not even be related, quite frankly.
00:04:25.760And yeah, I mean, I don't know why the Liberals keep repeating their 8 out of 10 Canadians are better due to the carbon tax lie
00:04:33.880that the PBO has repeatedly disproven.
00:04:37.440And as we talked about before the show, Chris, I was mentioning, let's say the cost is a few hundred dollars per family.
00:04:44.480In Canada, based on the PBO reports, I mean, we all know it's much higher than that
00:04:49.220because these reports don't go into the trickle-down effect of the production line
00:04:53.080because when you tax gas or diesel and something you buy has 10 different lines of transportation that it's taxed on,
00:05:45.560And this is especially affecting people in Alberta because Albertans are on average paying about $2,300 net in net costs to the carbon tax.
00:05:57.640And it's a lot higher than other parts of the country.
00:06:00.380It seems as if, you know, prime ministers with the last name Trudeau just have a knack for, you know,
00:06:04.980getting after Albertans and, you know, making their lives a little harder.
00:06:09.140So I think, you know, Canadians, when you tell them that it's raining, but, you know,
00:06:16.800he really is just a guy, you know, how do you just, you know, pissing on you,
00:06:20.300people are going to get sick out of it.
00:06:23.360Like, you can't continually gaslight Canadians for nine years and they feel the effects of your policies
00:06:30.820and then tell them, you know, be grateful for our, you know, rebates, you know,
00:06:34.880oh, well, we are actually just like robbing you blind and, you know, causing a net negative impact to the economy.
00:06:42.200So careful on gaslighting because that's natural gas and there's a carbon tax on natural gas.
00:06:46.560So I'm not sure how much Trudeau's came to gaslight us with the carbon tax on natural gas.
00:06:51.920As far as the numbers go here for Alberta, just to give you an idea, like for across the country,
00:06:57.980the mandatory minimum carbon tax, the first carbon tax, because we have several, on diesel is 21 cents per liter.
00:07:06.300So if you do that math, really, and you fill up a big rig truck, for example, that's about $200 extra,
00:07:13.480just in the carbon tax, not including administration cost, not including DST.
00:07:18.100And the truckers finally came out and said so.
00:07:20.340I think it's costing them $2 billion this year.
00:08:13.560We want people to achieve and work hard.
00:08:15.740But what really gets frustrating for people is when he's the prime minister and he keeps lecturing the rest of us about how important his carbon tax is and how we should be prioritizing that over feeding our kids and paying rent.
00:08:29.620And he said that again during this chit-chat.
00:08:33.520He also said it for the first time on stage a couple of weeks ago in Brazil, which was just bonkers.
00:08:51.860The only people who are truly feeling the cost of the carbon tax are people with mansions with indoor swimming pools and a bunch of personal cars.
00:09:14.420Now if you have three big mansions with an indoor swimming pool, that $824 a year isn't going to cover that price on pollution.
00:09:23.940You're choosing to pollute more than we're giving you back for.
00:09:26.760But if you're a middle class family, and if you're living in rural areas, we give a 20% top up because we know you have to drive further to go to school, to drop your school or work.
00:09:42.620And to your point, Noah, with the latest parliamentary budget officer report, because of course they've gone back and forth and they fought over what the real numbers are, even in the most conservative possible read of it, when you go take a look at the overall impact of the carbon tax, the average Alberta family, even on paper, is still out $400 this year.
00:10:04.860And it's only going to go up as they continue to increase the carbon tax.
00:10:08.000So even his own data defies this, which is, of course, you know, a violation of common sense.
00:10:14.340I don't know about you guys, but I did not grow up with an indoor swimming pool.
00:10:19.120And no judgment, did either of you guys grow up with an indoor swimming, heated swimming pool?
00:10:30.640So, my roof is intact, thank goodness.
00:10:34.800But of the people on this call and in this chat, we've played a clip from a guy twice who grew up with an indoor swimming pool at 24 Sussex.
00:10:45.720In fact, it was installed when his dad was prime minister.
00:10:49.340So, we know for faxies that he grew up, at least partially, with an indoor heated swimming pool.
00:10:56.360So, speaking of not getting it, I didn't watch this clip because it wasn't pertaining to, like, balanced budgets or carbon tax or something.
00:11:04.300But apparently he said something along the lines of he was really sad that Kamala Harris didn't win the presidency.
00:11:15.500So, basically, Justin Trudeau, he has been trying to, I guess, ease tensions between Canada and the United States, specifically because Donald Trump recently said that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico, as long as we do not meet certain conditions pertaining to border security and drug smuggling.
00:11:41.360So, you know, while we're in this, the middle of this, you know, tense negotiation, Trudeau gets up on stage in all of his hubris and progressive aura and basically says that, you know, I kind of wish that Kamala Harris won the election.
00:11:55.920And, you know, her losing the election is, quote, women's progress under attack.
00:12:02.500I think we have a clip for this, so we should hear it from the donkey's mouth himself.
00:12:12.920We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress.
00:12:18.380And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president.
00:12:29.000Everywhere, women's rights and women's progress is under attack, overtly and subtly.
00:12:36.160But I want you to know that I am and always will be a proud feminist.
00:12:41.280You will always have an ally in me and in my government.
00:12:44.360I mean, absolutely ridiculous, especially considering what he did to Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott.
00:12:54.400But, like, I just I don't want to go on too much of a tangent.
00:12:58.100But when he talks about the sort of march of progress or whatever he says, that's a very sort of, like, left-wing view of the world that, you know, we have to get rid of old traditional mores.
00:13:10.100And we have to get rid of the values that Canada was founded on and our civilization was founded on and instead replace it with these new progressive values.
00:13:19.480And we've basically been dealing with that for the past nine years.
00:13:52.880This is the sort of worldview that Justin Trudeau, that Justin Trudeau's worldview gets us to.
00:13:58.360So what did you guys make of Justin Trudeau saying that Kamala Harris's defeat is, you know, an attack on women and their progress and their rights?
00:14:08.920Yeah, so my first takeaway from what Trudeau said there is he is essentially saying DEI should supersede democracy.
00:14:18.900This from the leader of Canada, the prime minister of Canada, a democratic democratic nation.
00:14:24.360I mean, the fact that anyone could possibly agree with those words being uttered by our leader is shocking.
00:14:33.140I mean, in what world should world leaders be chosen on DEI attributes, not because they're brilliant, economically savvy, smart?
00:14:44.120I mean, the list goes on of adjectives you could use, by the way, none of which I believe Kamala Harris was.
00:15:35.540And as of right now, and it better stay that way, keeping an eye on you, the budget is balanced here in Alberta.
00:15:41.920We are saving money in the Heritage Fund.
00:15:45.600We have a Taxpayer Protection Act that they have beefed up so that if they wanted to increase any personal taxes that are already existing, we'd have to have a referendum to do it.
00:15:56.040Like, there are a lot of awesome things here happening fiscally in Alberta.
00:16:02.060And the Premier happens to be a woman.
00:16:05.920So this should be based on numbers and results and merit and performance.
00:16:11.180He might have cracked open a history book.
00:16:14.460I think his father probably met the late Margaret Thatcher.
00:16:18.740She was just Prime Minister of, you know, the United Kingdom for more than a decade.
00:16:22.960So it's weird to have just saying, as a woman who's been in the political arena now for like 25 years,
00:16:29.760it's weird to have the Prime Ministers making this about men and women rather than, number one, that's another country.
00:16:41.100Two, you got to go into negotiations with this dude now.
00:16:45.040That you just finished saying out loud with your face, wished hadn't won.
00:16:49.600That's not going to go super awesome for you.
00:16:51.600And three, it's weird to have him overlooking really competent political leaders who happen to be women here in Canada for the purpose of his own narrative.
00:17:14.640So for folks who don't remember, we've got a temporary reprieve of GST on some items you find in the grocery store and other stuff like, you know, kids' clothes and diapers, which frankly shouldn't have GST anyway.
00:17:25.860And it's going to last for a couple of months.
00:17:27.720And then there's also, in February, if I'm correct, everybody's supposed to get, who's working, supposed to get about $250 each.
00:17:37.300Yeah, and this poll went into both the GST, HST holiday and the $250 check, highlighting that essentially Canadians are not buying what the Liberals are selling.
00:17:49.700So, yeah, this was a survey from the Angus Reid Institute, and it asked Canadians about, as I mentioned, both the $250 one-time check and the GST, HST cuts, which, by the way, both policies will cost more than $6.2 billion.
00:18:04.660This with, what's our debt at now, Chris, $1.25 trillion just over at?
00:18:12.200So, the interesting thing about this poll was it really went into the data, and it showed that over a quarter of the poll respondents said they weren't even eligible for the check.
00:18:22.920Even more, almost 40% said it would have absolutely no impact on their household, while only just over 30% said it would help a little.
00:18:31.640But get this, only 5% of Canadians said it would help a lot.
00:18:35.440So, that's not really doing anything for them.
00:18:37.380And then, going into the GST, HST exemptions, this over half, 55%, said that it'll do nothing to help their household.
00:18:47.440And then over a third, 38%, said it would help a little.
00:18:49.960But again, only 7% said it would help a lot.
00:18:53.740And yeah, the poll got into all the income groups and age groups and, of course, the parties as well, which, as you would expect, the conservatives were the most likely to say that these policies were, quote, entirely political, with 82% of those who intend to vote conservatives saying that.
00:19:12.220Compared to when you look at all parties, it was 55% overall who said that it was entirely political.
00:19:22.300Yeah, I mean, there's so much data I could go into it all, but basically all you guys need to know is that Canadians aren't buying either of the policies.
00:19:34.160Well, yeah, I think that it's entirely political, and Canadians know that, and they don't want to feel bought off.
00:19:41.960I mean, this is the type of stuff that happens in 10-part, you know, democracy, even like Latin America or like Africa or somewhere, you know, before an election, they're just handing out, you know, a couple hundred bucks to people.
00:19:52.920It's like, okay, now go vote for us, you know.
00:19:55.460That's exactly what Trudeau wants to do, especially since there was speculation that the liberals might want to try and call for a spring election or at least maneuver, I think, the parliament so that an election does occur in the spring, right, just before or after the checks get mailed out.
00:20:11.960The Canadians, so, and you see this in other promises, too, like British Columbia and Ontario and Quebec is part of the reason.
00:20:20.540But the thing is, this stuff does not work.
00:20:23.340In Quebec, Francois Legault, I think, mailed out $500 checks to people, I think, during the pandemic and just after the pandemic.
00:20:29.000And his approval rating is at the lowest it's ever been.
00:20:32.560I think his personal approval rating is at like 26%.
00:20:35.920His party is at like 21% in the polls.
00:20:39.020Doug Ford is immune to all political hits.
00:20:42.940And, you know, so Ontario is just weird like that.
00:20:45.660In BC, you've seen a big backlash against the EB government with the BC Conservatives coming within an inch of forming government.
00:20:53.900And Trudeau is, you know, sticking to these terrible tactics, terrible policies, trying to buy Canadians off.
00:21:00.420People don't want to feel like it's still grimy, you know, like, you know, getting paid off to, you know, vote for a politician.
00:21:07.400Like, people don't want to feel like that.
00:21:09.240So it's actually going to probably cause a backlash and cause more people to move away from the lower party, which I think is absolutely hilarious.
00:21:17.280Yeah. Speaking of that, Noah, let me just get into that data quickly, which I forgot to mention.
00:21:21.520This is very, very key, is that it actually is causing a backlash.
00:22:11.820People don't want to be bought off and, you know, like $250, it's marginal.
00:22:16.240You know, the carbon tax, it's, it's, it's rinsing Canadians for thousands of dollars every year.
00:22:21.160Instead of, you know, mailing out these checks, it'd be like, oh, here you go.
00:22:24.340After we robbed you blind, I'm going to give you.
00:22:26.440So it's like that meme where the guy hands out a $10 bill from like a wallet where he has a hundred bucks and the guy just takes the wallet instead of the $10 bill.
00:22:34.480So you're left with, you know, a little instead of giving the guy what you actually wanted.
00:22:37.820Like, this is like that meme in real life.
00:22:40.360You know, they're going to rinse you, rinse you with thousands, for a thousand dollars worth of carbon tax.
00:22:44.960They're going to rinse you with increases in, in, in taxes elsewhere and the capital gains tax.
00:22:50.400Economic activity is going to go down.
00:22:52.760Waging, wage growth is going to be stunted.
00:22:56.140Like people know that this is absolutely ridiculous and it's going to hurt the true, true liberals politically as it should.
00:23:04.340To me, it's a big indicator that 28%, that's a big number.
00:23:09.120To me, this just indicates people are angry, like really angry.
00:23:14.080And no matter what this government does, it sounds like, it's just going to keep on getting angrier.
00:23:20.220Um, it's one of those situations where it's almost like an interpersonal fight where a line has been crossed and you're completely done with that person.
00:25:49.840Like, like, like, even good ideas, and I don't think it's a good idea, but even like good ideas implemented poorly,
00:25:55.820it's just going to be bad policy that's not going to help anyone, you know, I, but this is like a policy that was written on the back of a napkin
00:26:03.620and then handed over to Christopher Freeland's like, implement this now, you know, like, I sort of imagine, like,
00:26:08.860there was a cabinet meeting, you know, Trudeau was hearing from the cabinet ministers, didn't like what he wanted or what they were saying.
00:26:15.500So, you know, brings Melanie Jolie into the back room, you know, they each have a scotch with one another.
00:26:20.360And then they conceived this plan, you know, like, and then they're like, okay, guys, this is what we're doing.
00:27:25.640Yeah, of course, the CTF, through some access to information documents, revealed that taxpayers were funding the tab for a federal department's real estate portfolio,
00:27:34.900which was costing $186 million over the last decade.
00:27:39.940This was from Global Affairs Canada, who owns more than 400 properties in over 70 countries.
00:27:45.660And no, people, these aren't standard properties.
00:27:49.540For example, one of the expenses, $12.5 million for vacant land in Senegal.
00:28:45.300So, my favorite part of this was the fact that taxpayers are on the tip tab for $41 million for properties that we own in Afghanistan.
00:28:55.220Now, before you get started on the whole Operation Medusa and all that stuff, no, no, no, no.
00:29:00.160Folks, they bought this in late 2018, 2019.
00:29:05.140Well into the early indications that we'll be leaving soon, guys.
00:29:09.460So, I think this happened after then-U.S. President Donald Trump was having meetings with the Taliban saying, yeah, knock it off and we're leaving.
00:29:17.940So, pretty much everybody in the Western world, as far as I could tell by then, knew we were leaving.
00:29:22.700But, nope, here comes Canada, Foreign Affairs Canada.
00:29:25.440We're going to spend $41 million on property.
00:29:28.040And, by the way, that's now obviously being totally controlled by the Taliban.
00:29:31.460We have no way of even checking on it.
00:29:33.580But, boneheaded the decision to buy this.
00:30:39.560It's also an awful lot of money, again, on the New York embassy as well with the official residents there.
00:30:44.720The point of this is, is that quite often when we'll yell about the fact that the budget is horribly imbalanced, as of right now, technically on paper, the deficit is about $40 billion in the red.
00:30:57.620To give you an idea of what kind of money that is, that would build you 38 brand new, really awesome hospitals.
00:31:06.040And we don't have the fall economic statement yet.
00:31:08.900But apparently all the rumors are is that it's going to be even a bigger deficit.
00:31:12.620So whenever we yell at them and say, could you clowns try to balance the budget, they say something like, oh, what do you want to cut first, food to orphans or health care for grandma?
00:31:32.820Chris, just wanted to get your thoughts on something because I see your defund the CBC sticker in the back there.
00:31:38.320And obviously the Canadian Taxpayers Federation previously highlighted that the CBC's real estate portfolio was worth over $444 million across 12 properties.
00:31:48.640I mean, these properties are over $30 million each.
00:32:24.240So that's now bleeding into like downtown fancy Vancouver.
00:32:27.700So they own a big property there in downtown fancy Vancouver right near the water.
00:32:31.540And also the big one, of course, is in Toronto, that gigantic building that they have there like that.
00:32:40.260The building is so big that when you walk in, they used to have like three story tall pictures of Jian Ghomeshi, who used to be, of course, the host of Q.
00:33:11.340So, yeah, this is what you're paying for with the CBC.
00:33:13.600That's why we took them to the cleaners there at the committee, the Heritage Committee, and said, you guys are costing us this year $1.4 billion.
00:33:41.980All right, folks, that was really fun.
00:33:44.100Any other parting shots that you would like to take?
00:33:49.000Well, I just got to say that if you are a Global Affairs Canada bureaucrat, like don't spend like you have Elon Musk's wallet, you know, like you don't.
00:34:24.260Well, I wish Musk would come up here when he's finished cleaning it up in the States because we definitely need our own Department of Government Efficiency.
00:34:30.400But until then, remember, everything is off the record.
00:34:41.000Speaking of Musk, we never did get into him.
00:34:43.180So I'll just reference that quickly because for those who don't know, he mentioned Trudeau on Twitter and Musk said, quote, he's such an insufferable tool.