00:01:37.220I know every time you come on the Alberta Roundup, everyone is always very happy to have you and to see your insights.
00:01:44.980So I think generally the people of Alberta are very happy that they're getting more conservative coverage of the province.
00:01:50.780So, you know, we've had another interesting week in Canadian politics, starting off with a big story coming out of Western Canada, not Alberta, but just next to us, BC.
00:02:01.120Basically, the collapse of the BC United this week with leader Kevin Falcon saying that he would be endorsing the BC Conservatives and that they would be suspending their election campaign entirely.
00:02:13.920I mean, I think a lot of people have been talking about how we are going to be seeing a blue wave in BC come this fall.
00:02:21.820But I didn't see this withdrawal coming.
00:02:24.920I heard about it a few hours before it was actually announced on Wednesday.
00:02:28.440Why don't we just let Kevin Falcon explain in his own words why he decided to suspend his campaign?
00:02:37.600The name is about trying to unite people.
00:02:40.660But what became apparent to me as I've crisscrossed the province and heard from literally tens of thousands of people is the number one major concern that they had.
00:02:52.180And that is, Kevin, if you guys don't do the right thing and be the adults in the room and help bring together that free enterprise, centre-right, common-sense coalition, you are going to help elect an NDP government.
00:03:06.100And all of you that know me know that there is nothing more important to me, my children and your children and grandchildren, that we not give the NDP one more day in power than they absolutely have to have.
00:03:20.940And that's why I made the decision that I made as leader of BC United to suspend our campaign.
00:03:30.660I will be withdrawing our candidate nominations.
00:03:34.580And in cooperation with John Rustad, we will work together to assemble the best possible team of MLAs and candidates that can serve the best interests of British Columbians.
00:03:49.240So, I mean, I have to be honest, at the ripe old age of 26, I've been covering politics in Canada for, you know, about five, six years now.
00:03:58.560I've already become quite the pessimist.
00:04:00.620So typically when I see a clip like this, especially when we're doing our Friday fun show, my first initial reaction would be to really make fun of Calvin Falcon.
00:04:11.400I mean, the irony of this being is that he obviously kicked John Rustad out of the party back in 2022 where Rustad had posted a tweet basically denying the impacts of climate change and he was kicked out of the BC United for this.
00:04:21.860And here we are, you know, a year later and closer to two years later and Kevin Falcon is suspending his campaign and essentially endorsing John Rustad's party.
00:04:32.220So there's certainly a level of irony here.
00:04:34.160That being said, I think we can all agree that this is actually the right thing for Kevin to do.
00:04:37.980And it's not very often that we see politicians doing the right thing nowadays.
00:04:43.600It's not very often that we see politicians recognizing when they are unpopular, when their policies are unpopular.
00:04:48.920Obviously, the best example of this currently is in the is in the liberal government.
00:04:52.820Jagmeet Singh is a very unpopular politician.
00:04:55.440His party is not doing well and he's not willing to recognize this.
00:04:58.880He's also not willing to recognize the fact that the liberals are not polling well and that he should end his supply confidence agreement,
00:05:04.120in which he doesn't even seem to be benefiting from politically anyways.
00:05:08.740So, you know, Kevin is actually doing the right thing here.
00:05:11.180And I think we can definitely commend him for that.
00:05:13.300But Sue Ann, you've been around for just a little longer than I have, maybe about five or 10 years.
00:05:21.080I've covered politics for, well, I would say 30 years.
00:05:24.640And I've seen municipal races, provincial races, and federal ones where the conservatives have gone down to defeat because they have failed to understand that they need to unite various candidates.
00:05:40.740I mean, it just happened in our election race here in Toronto where there were three or four conservative candidates and the NDP squeaked through.
00:05:49.860And the NDP is very, very good at organizing conservatives, less so.
00:05:56.120And the egos that are involved in some of these races are unbelievable.
00:06:24.800I mean, when we're talking about this idea of conservatives especially needing to unite to coalesce those conservative votes, I mean, Isaac, how successful do you think that this endeavor will be?
00:06:34.580Do you think that the conservatives will be successful in the fall election in BC?
00:06:38.160Yeah, when I first saw this, I initially thought, of course, this would almost guarantee that the conservatives come out with a victory in the following election.
00:06:48.480And interestingly, when I was talking about this on Daily Brief the other day, I did a quick historical analysis on other political downfalls in Canadian history.
00:07:00.020And though Sue N's been covering politics in Canada longer than I've been alive, I'll try and do my best here.
00:07:17.840So, yeah, just the most notable one that stood out to me and I looked through various was obviously Kim Campbell's defeat when she became prime minister after Brian Mulroney resigned.
00:07:49.640So, it'll be interesting to see how this BC United debacle, let's call it, goes down in Canadian history as a political defeat, I suppose, if you want to call it that.
00:08:02.240And, like, when we talk about watching this, how this plays out, Sue Ann, you've seen these types of situations play out a little more than Isaac and I have.
00:08:09.520One of the things that I'm wondering is, you know, federally, I think a lot of people are hoping that we're going to have an election sooner rather than later.
00:08:15.440But I think, obviously, we'll have one in 2025.
00:08:19.340With, you know, Pierre Polyev's Conservatives, do you think that Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada is going to be a problem for the Conservatives?
00:08:28.360Do you think it is going to split that Conservative vote?
00:08:30.920Or do you think that the PPC really shone during the COVID era when they were the one federal party criticizing government policy around COVID-19?
00:08:40.440And that we won't see that same level of support for them next year?
00:08:43.620I don't think we're going to see the same level.
00:08:45.060I think he's sort of, you want to say flawed because he's just, you know, embarrassed himself on the, he hasn't kept up, let's say, with the times.
00:08:56.760And, you know, you've got to be conservative, fiscally conservative, tough on law and order, but you have to understand some of the social realities of Canada.
00:09:06.000I mean, not bend to transgender philosophy and crazy people and give them all kinds of money.
00:09:12.360But in the same token, understand, like, I call myself a fiscal conservative, but I'm socially liberal.
00:09:20.640So I think he's pretty much dead in the water.
00:09:25.620And I don't think he'll have an impact next year.
00:09:32.760I'd be surprised if we see a resurgence of the PPC in 2025.
00:09:36.900I don't know if it's quite the year to make it the wedge issue, especially with the Conservatives.
00:09:40.520I know only in the last few months, but coalescing to Canadians' concerns around immigration.
00:09:45.340Now, obviously, when this story came out this week of the BC United suspending their campaign, I suspect conservative households like ours across the country were sort of celebrating, you know, taking this as a good sign of good conservative momentum out West.
00:10:00.820However, it was a little overshadowed in my household by this slight irritation.
00:10:06.440A member of my family, I'm not going to name names, left the house this week.
00:10:12.320I don't remember which day it was to, you know, go to the convenience store and to pick up a pack of Zonic and, you know, have some tobacco pouches, which is really quite a successful method for people who are trying to quit smoking is to use these tobacco pouches.
00:10:26.440And apparently the federal government has passed new regulations.
00:10:30.380You can no longer buy them at convenience stores.
00:10:33.880So this member of my household basically spent a few hours driving around trying to get his hands on some Zonic or another form of tobacco pouches.
00:10:44.860I guess you can only buy them at pharmacies now, but it seems like the pharmacies aren't even really on top of this.
00:10:57.480Well, firstly, I'll note that you called them tobacco pouches, which they're actually nicotine pouches, which is kind of the Liberals' whole reasoning behind this change that took place on August 28th, which was that these nicotine pouches, known under the brand names of Zonic and Zin, are no longer able to be sold at convenience stores prior to the change.
00:11:17.760You'd obviously find them most commonly at 7-Eleven, but now they can only be sold in pharmacies.
00:11:23.440And the Liberals' explanation for this was that youth were acquiring them, as I mentioned, because there's no tobacco in them.
00:11:30.520They fell outside of the purview of tobacco or vaping laws, so I guess any aged person could buy them, although many of the companies had made them 18+, but some of the convenience stores, I guess, weren't honoring this request from the companies.
00:11:45.880And in fact, the vice president of Imperial Tobacco, Eric Gagnon, he said, quote, the biggest losers right now are adult smokers that have been using Zonic, and I know there are many of them, myself included.
00:11:59.320This really took me by surprise, because I think it was the August 27th, I went to the store to get some, and I seen the sign that said, we will no longer be selling these after the 28th because of federal law, which obviously we'd reported on, but that was a while ago, and I had forgotten about it.
00:12:18.060So this was, it sent me into, well, it made me a bit mad, especially, I went in and I joked with the cashier, I said, oh, but don't worry, I can still get a crack pipe for free from the federal government down the corner, and she didn't seem to find that too funny.
00:12:34.140But this, of course, was the same day, the very same day I wrote the article about drug vending machines in British Columbia, in Victoria, where MLAs were showcasing that you could get a cocaine snorting kit, crack pipes, crack inhalation kits for free from a vending machine outside of an emergency room.
00:12:53.680So this really seems to be kind of flawed in that sense.
00:12:58.660I mean, when you look at what's happening with drugs across the country, and really this is the step we're taking, I don't know, what do you guys think about that?
00:13:08.780Well, I mean, I just don't understand why the regulation couldn't have simply been that you had to be over 18 to buy these from convenience stores and said they've made it, you know, very difficult for people who want to buy these products to sort of have to jump through hoops.
00:13:23.680I'm curious for now, if you're buying it at the pharmacy, is there going to be an uptick in price?
00:13:29.980I mean, if it's not going to become more expensive, okay, like it's not the worst thing.
00:13:34.220But at the end of the day, I think it's just the irritation, the annoyance, like it's so quick and easy to run into a convenience store to pick something up.
00:13:40.840Now you're going to have to track down a pharmacy.
00:13:42.300There's probably going to be a bit of a longer wait.
00:13:44.800And, you know, we should actually be promoting these products for people who are trying to quit smoking because like taking one of these, as you said, correct me, yes, nicotine pouches is obviously a lot.
00:13:53.680Less harmful for your body than inhaling smoke.
00:13:56.480So if anything, we should be kind of, and I already know that there's more restrictions on the products that we offer here in Canada or yeah, because for example, I know in the States you can get Zin, which is really popular for people who are quitting smoking.
00:14:08.660I believe Tucker Carlson sort of infamously always have, has some Zin in his mouth.
00:14:15.120So there's already a lot of restrictions around what you can get here in Canada.
00:14:18.520And they've just made it even harder to get.
00:14:20.240And I am just curious, like, let's follow the money.
00:14:22.280Let's see who's actually benefiting from the fact that this is now only going to be available at pharmacies because it just doesn't make sense when they could have gone the route of enforcing it at convenience stores and telling convenience stores they had to be checking IDs for people who were buying these products like they already do for people who are buying cigarettes.
00:14:41.180Well, I think there's a tremendous irony.
00:14:44.180I mean, you already talked about, you have to be 18 to walk into a safe injection site and get your arms shot up with some sort of illegal drug.
00:16:10.760I just loathe what the drug industry has done to these people.
00:16:15.680When we talk about sort of, Sue Ann, as you mentioned, the government seems to want to keep people dependent, which I absolutely agree with.
00:16:23.140But let's just dig into that, Foxo, a little bit more.
00:16:25.880Like, what do you think are the actual reasons for the government wanting to keep people so dependent on these really life-altering substances in the worst possible way?
00:16:57.220There's big bucks in keeping those safe injection sites alive.
00:17:02.500And that's why people here in my province of Ontario went so crazy in the last week with the announcement by Doug Ford that he was going to shut down sites by schools within 200 meters that have created just absolute havoc with these poor kids.
00:17:17.980I mean, I've done numerous stories on how these schools have been impacted.
00:17:23.340They just, just want to keep the industry thriving.
00:17:27.860You got a ragtag group of drug activists standing up at the legislature here in Ontario talking about how people are going to die because of these, the closures.
00:17:45.060And when you talk about, you know, the safe injection sites being close to schools, like as a recent parent myself,
00:17:50.500I just feel like life in Canada is getting harder and harder for parents.
00:17:54.280Like there's so few places that you can bring your kids that's safe nowadays.
00:17:58.180Like for me, the desire is just to sort of kind of be at home or like in a small town.
00:18:02.900Like I just don't even want to go out with my son anymore because I feel like there's danger lurking at every, every corner.
00:18:07.940Or maybe that's a symptom of me being online too much, but we, I think definitely are all feeling the impacts of how unsafe Canada has become under the true liberals.
00:18:17.580And they're, you know, they're, they're just bail system.
00:18:20.140Everyone getting out on bail all the time and all these other policies like safe injection sites.
00:18:23.700Isaac, you know, for this story that we're looking at here, specifically on the nicotine pouches, do you think that this is something that Canadians are really aware of?
00:18:32.300As I mentioned, like there is a member of my household who regularly uses these things and went to buy his pack this week and realized that, oh, the regulations have changed.
00:18:41.900Do you think this is something that was understood and was sort of people were given advanced notice of or was this sort of slipped in quietly?
00:18:48.300Yeah, that's a tough one. As I said, we had previously reported on, on it, and it still slipped to my mind until literally the day before when I went to the 7-Eleven and they had the signs plastered on their doors.
00:19:01.820So in that sense, I want to think that people had either not heard about it or probably forgotten about it.
00:19:08.440This definitely wasn't something that was in the news, like breaking tomorrow, nicotine pouch is no longer available.
00:19:13.420I don't think legacy medias were reporting that specifically.
00:19:16.940So, yeah, I don't think that they necessarily were aware of it prior to the change, but they certainly are now because one thing I wanted to mention with convenience stores no longer selling them, many people would have probably gotten these pouches, for example, let's say before night out, you know, before going out on the town.
00:19:34.520So late at night, whereas pharmacies obviously aren't open 24-7 like convenience stores are.
00:19:40.320So that really is a big part of the change, I think, because the timeframe where you can actually go to a pharmacy is much more limited than, say, a 7-Eleven.
00:19:48.520So that's definitely a bad thing because I think the nighttime, you know, is definitely a common time for people to be consuming nicotine.
00:19:57.760Yeah, you raise a really good point there.
00:20:02.640And if I'm up past 9 p.m., which I usually am, usually about that time, I'm like, I wonder what we have that I can snack on.
00:20:10.500And for that reason, I just I never keep sugar in the house because I get the munchies in the evenings.
00:20:15.620It's just better if I don't have it makes it difficult for me to get.
00:20:18.200Then usually I can manage to not have any.
00:20:20.200But I mean, even as you mentioned, Isaac, we, True North, covered this this story.
00:20:24.720But I mean, Canadians even have a hard time finding our news because you can no longer get it on Facebook and Instagram and all these crazy things.
00:20:31.000I don't really use those platforms very much anymore.
00:20:33.440So I sometimes forget that we're not really on them.
00:20:35.480But it does baffle me, or at least we can't very easily post our articles on them.
00:20:39.580So makes it just more difficult for Canadians to even have access to these news, which is why it's important that we do shows like this to tell people what's going on and to keep them informed.
00:20:48.840And speaking of Isaac, I know that you had a good exclusive this week.
00:20:52.220Why don't you share with us what that was about?
00:20:55.360So people, again, going back to the past may remember hearing about this five years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to plant two billion trees by by the year 2030.
00:21:06.220The Liberal government is barely a quarter of the way there.
00:21:09.740So first of all, I was trying to find these numbers when I was writing the article on like, OK, how many trees have they planted to date?
00:21:17.000And the last update the Liberals did was August 2023.
00:21:20.600So I emailed Natural Resources Canada and they told me they actually gave me the most updated number that you'll find anywhere, which was 553 million.
00:21:30.400But the caveat there is that they said this is an agreement, essentially, to plant 553 million trees to date.
00:21:37.280So it's not that they've planted 553 million trees.
00:21:40.160It's that in some way, shape or form, they have theoretically agreed to plant 553 million trees.
00:21:46.180But even with that number, this theoretical hypothetical number, they would have had to have planted 700 million trees so far to be on pace for that two billion goal.
00:21:56.300So they're already behind that, even with their imaginary number, if you want to call it that.
00:22:00.280And this all came from a press release where Forest Ontario was bragging that they planted 2.7 million trees this year, bringing their national total to 46 and a half million.
00:22:12.000Though another story we did in the past was a 2023 audit done by Canada's Environment Commissioner, Jerry DeMarco, where he found that the goal would basically, it was impossible to meet unless, quote, significant changes were made.
00:22:27.400So by the time of that audit, the goal was 30 million trees by 2021, 60 million by 2022.
00:22:34.040And he said that they were already 45 million trees behind the targets.
00:22:40.960His projections, in fact, showed that 76 million trees.
00:22:45.480So that's 3.8% of the 2 billion promised would be planted by 2030.
00:22:49.960So, I mean, they're nowhere near this.
00:22:51.560And this is, of course, another empty promise by the liberal government.
00:22:55.300One last thing I'll add is something Blacklock's reported, where they said they found an internal memo from the Natural Resources Department that said the 2 billion trees number, the 2 billion trees number was just a slogan, and it wasn't to be taken literally.
00:23:09.620So that's what this liberal promise is, just an empty slogan.
00:23:15.760Are you guys surprised to hear that this promise is not going to be kept?
00:23:20.860Not the slightest, but I'm surprised that they didn't plant more trees because clearly, pardon the pun, it's Friday and it's off the record.
00:23:30.640Clearly, the liberal government thinks that money does grow on trees.
00:23:33.920So the more trees they have, the more money they will have.
00:23:37.380I just feel like their efforts would be better focused instead of worrying about planting all these new trees is protecting some of the ones that we already have.
00:23:46.900So, for example, take a look at the crazy forest fires that we have going on in Western Canada specifically.
00:23:53.500I do believe that forest fires are a natural part of the cycle, but it would be a great benefit to all of us if we were to prioritize some controlled burns in areas where, for example, all the trees have been killed by bugs.
00:24:08.900What's the pine beetles is once, yes, pine beetles coming through, you know, focus on controlled burns with those areas where the trees are dead instead of just letting the dead trees pile up.
00:24:18.520And then we get a forest fire that gets very hot and out of control and burns, you know, hectares of good, healthy trees.
00:24:24.840And then, you know, then they would be able to sort of save money in the process and they could count that as success because instead of planting new trees, they had sort of saved existing trees.
00:24:33.440So I just feel like their efforts here are not exact.
00:24:37.640I don't have an issue with planting new trees, but I just believe let's sort of prioritize like the natural cycle of nature and things.
00:24:45.220And I would say also that in cities, and it filters right down to cities, development is out of control.
00:24:53.140And whenever you develop large apartment buildings or large condos or whatever, affordable housing, which is not so affordable, you take down trees.
00:25:05.500And there is not, I guess, an imperative to replace these trees.
00:25:38.540I happen to be very fortunate to live near a trail that's been reconverted.
00:25:42.600It was a railway line, and now it's called the Beltline, and it's in Midtown Toronto, and it's beautiful.
00:25:51.480And I run on it, I bike on it, and those kinds of things should not be the exception to the rule in cities.
00:25:58.020Isaac, with this policy being, you know, from the Liberal government, obviously they're not going to be able to fill that pledge before the next election, which seems like they'll lose.
00:26:09.020Do you think that this is something that the Conservatives are going to be interested in carrying forward, or do you think that this is sort of just something Trudeau wanted and obviously has not succeeded through that?
00:26:19.200Yeah, that's a, hmm, I hadn't really considered whether the Conservatives would pick up this goal, though.
00:26:26.280I would imagine that they might use it as background in a debate against Trudeau.
00:26:31.080Of course, this wouldn't be a main talking point, but if they're talking about the many broken promises from this Liberal government, certainly this could be on the list.
00:26:39.940As for whether the Conservatives will pick it up, I mean, who knows?
00:26:43.600I could certainly see that happening, though.
00:26:45.280I mean, they'll say, hey, look, we'll do what the Liberals said they would and failed to do.
00:26:49.640We'll actually plant the two billion trees, or the goal could be revised by then.
00:26:53.760But yeah, obviously, as Sue Ann said, trees are just an important part of life, and really nature in general shouldn't be the exception.
00:27:03.000So it'd be great to see them pick it up.
00:27:05.640You know, one of the things that I think still surprises me most about Alberta is obviously it being a prairie is how few trees there are in, like, certain parts of the province.
00:27:13.600Obviously, there's a lot of trees in the mountains, you know, a decent amount in the foothills.
00:27:17.380But when you get to the actual prairie, you know, then a lot less other than in certain little ravines and things.
00:27:25.080Is there trees, a lot of trees where you live in Edmonton, Isaac?
00:27:29.560Yeah, I'd say there's a decent amount of trees.
00:27:31.720And obviously, I used to live in northwest Alberta, when I when I worked for the French radio station there.
00:27:38.820And that was there was a lot of trees up there.
00:27:41.200I'll tell you that much because, yeah, there were there weren't that many people, right?
00:27:50.160Well, and the prairies offer their own sort of unique beauty to things.
00:27:55.200My my husband and I just bought a house and I was very excited that there's a big tree that the last owners planted in the backyard.
00:28:01.800So I feel like it's a little piece of, you know, Ontario for me in Alberta.
00:28:05.840Yeah, we have a huge tree in our backyard.
00:28:07.740But given its angle and it could be a problem in years to come because it is going to might need to cut it down so it doesn't crash into the house.