EZRA LEVANT ｜ 10 small observations about the Alberta independence movement
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Summary
I m an exile in Toronto, but my heart is still in Alberta, and I ve been keeping my ear to the ground on the Alberta independence movement. Here s a few thoughts I ve picked up over the past few months.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. I'm going to share with you 10 deep thoughts I have on Alberta independence.
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It's just my feelings as sort of an Alberta expat out here in Toronto. I've been out here in Toronto
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for almost 15 years, but my heart's still in Alberta. I think I understand both sides of
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the divide. And I'll take you through my top 10 observations so far. I wonder if you'll find them
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interesting. And then, of course, we talked to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about the government
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hiding certain expenses. You know, that's never a good sign. But first, let me invite you to become
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a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. Just go to
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rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And we really rely on that dough to pay the
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bills around here because we don't take any government money. And it shows. Tonight, 10 small
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observations about the Alberta independence movement. It's February 10th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Well, hi, everybody. You know, I was born and raised in Alberta. My father's in Alberta and
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actually goes back to 1903 when my family first came there. That's actually before it was a province.
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1903 in a place like the United Kingdom or France is a blink of an eye. It's very modern. But
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1903 in the prairies is pretty ancient. And the thing is, the history of Alberta, which I studied
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growing up both in school and just in informal readings, is one of inequality. The province of
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Alberta was born unequal. It didn't have the same natural resource rights as eastern provinces. It was
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born weak on purpose. There was the first, the contemplated idea of a super province called Buffalo,
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if you can believe it, look it up, that had both Alberta and Saskatchewan joined. It was cut in half
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to make sure it didn't get too powerful. But of course, the two provinces are best friends.
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There's a lot of things about Alberta's history that keep echoing over time. For example,
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Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, raiding the oil welfare in the national energy program,
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which then of course came back with Justin Trudeau's own carbon tax. And now with Mark Carney
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demanding all sorts of payoffs and commissions of sorts, carbon capture here, carbon tax there,
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before Albertans are allowed to work for a living. No other industry in the country
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has to pay off collateral interests before they have the right to do, I don't know,
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lumber or fish or coal. It's, well, coal maybe a little bit, but only Alberta has to pay a kind of
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fee in political favors before it's allowed to exploit its own resources. These things add up
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over the course of time. But I live in Ontario now. I used to say I'm an exile in Toronto. You can only
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say that for so long before you are an Ontarian. I feel, though, a great kinship within Alberta,
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and I visit it all the time. We have a presence in Alberta, our chief reporter up there, Sheila Gunn-Reed
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and others as well. And I feel like I'm keeping my ear to the ground on this independence movement
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very closely. It's something that I followed growing up. And I followed Preston Manning's
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attempted antidote to separatism. Remember that Preston Manning's first motto for the Reform Party
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was the West Wants In. It was a complete rebuttal to the West Wants Out, the Western Canada concept
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and other separatist movements that flourished in response to Pierre Trudeau's attack on the West.
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Preston Manning, in his own way, saved Canada. Now, you'll never hear a thank you from Ontario
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and Quebec. They have nothing but hatred for him. But he is the one who took all that energy and said,
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hey guys, let's try and reform the country, not abandon it. Well, I was part of that in a very
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small way. I was Preston Manning's assistant for a couple of years in parliament, and I was a
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youth organizer. And I was thrilled with the energy in Alberta, but I soon came to the conclusion
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that everyone else in Alberta has always concluded, which is the numbers just aren't there.
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When you are 10% of the population, even a couple percent more in our structure,
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you just get the short end of the stick every time. There is not the same protection for oil-rich
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places in Canada as, let's say, Texas. It would be unthinkable that the federal government would raid
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Texas in the manner that the federal government has raided Alberta. These are some of the things
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on my mind. But I'd like to share with you 10 thoughts. They're not deep thoughts. They're not
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intricate thoughts, but they're just sort of some things I've observed over the debate. And I say this
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is an Ontarian who loves Alberta and someone who thinks that Alberta has actually been hard done
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by in its own way. You might laugh at that. Alberta is the wealthiest place in Canada. It's very
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successful despite the attacks on it. But it's a combination of what it has not been able to do
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and how it has been deliberately disrespected over the generations. These are some of the things on my
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mind. So let me start with my first point, which is the Alberta independence movement is not actually
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anti-Canadian. And it's definitely not anti-patriotic. In fact, I bet that in Alberta,
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most military veterans, let alone serving military, and most police and most police vets are for it.
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I just give that as a kind of measure of patriotism, just like you saw in the trucker convoy.
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Um, it's in fact, a kind of heightened patriotism. It's not a loathing for Canada. It's a lament
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for what Canada has become and what it never could become. I think you'll find if you were to ask
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most independence-minded Albertans, are you patriotic? They would say yes. They would sort
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of struggle to reconcile how they could be a monarchist or how they could love Canada's history,
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but also want to leave it. But, uh, I put it to you that that is a fact. Most Albertans who want
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independence are not anti-Canada at all. Here's my second point. I don't think that the independence
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movement is actually passionate. And I mean that in the Latin meaning it's a tortured or, or revved up.
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I, I, I think it's not emotional. In, if anything, it's in sorrow, not anger. It's not a rage against
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Canada. It's a cold-blooded, thoughtful decision that has been, I don't know, lurking for a while,
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and now it's here. Uh, I think it's like a decision people have just finally made. I, I guess you could
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compare it in some ways to a divorce and there are divorces with both parties argue and throw dishes,
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I guess, but this would be the couple that no longer argues with each other. They're just
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done. And now it's just having a divorce with the least rancor possible. I think that is the mindset
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of the average Alberta independence-minded person. They're not raging. They're not actually passionate.
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They've just decided. My third observation is that it's absolutely not the case with the
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anti-separatists, either those in Alberta or mainly those in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal. I think
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in my mind of the at-issue panel, I think it's called on CBC, where you've got Andrew Coyne and
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Rosemary Barton and Althea Raj and Chantali Baer, the entire range of opinion from A to B,
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the entire range of geography from Toronto to Montreal. Like it's just a laugh that that is their
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national panel. They're all in agreement and they are raging. I mean, Andrew Coyne has lost his
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marbles on Donald Trump. He's got a Trump derangement syndrome and he has now aimed that
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not only at Pierre Paglia, but at any independence-minded Albertans. So I say that whereas
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independence-minded Albertans are not running hot, they're very cold and thoughtful,
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the anti-separatists are raging. They're full of loathing. They're full of insults. In fact,
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it's very rare that I see an argument attempting to persuade Albertans not to go. It's normally
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either saying, you're stupid, you don't know this, or just plain old name calling. You know
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what I did? I was looking at the use of the word treasonous. That socialist pro-China premier,
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David Eby, used the word treasonous. Other people are using the word treason.
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I'd like to just take and pause a moment. I read an article last night in the Financial Times
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about a group of people from Alberta. I won't describe them as Albertans who went to the White
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House seeking the assistance of the United States to break up our country. Now, I understand the
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desire to hold a referendum, to talk about the issues you want to talk about in Canada. We got
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free speech. That's important. But to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up
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Canada, there's an old-fashioned word for that. And that word is treason.
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I had Grok, which is the Twitter-based artificial intelligence engine. I had a search through the
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archives of the CBC for any single occasion where the CBC called Quebec separatists treasonous. And
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it came up with nothing. And then I instructed it, look deeper, look harder. They could not find a,
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the artificial intelligence could not find a single instance of the CBC calling a Quebec separatist
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treasonous. But they certainly ladle that word around with Albertans. And like, there's a lot of
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layers here. First of all, the double standard between Quebec and Alberta just confirms that in
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the minds of Albertans. Second of all, the fact that the CBC, a national organ under the Canadian
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Broadcasting Act, is so partisan is another point. And, and just the, the, the fact that they're
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accusing Albertans who are following a democratic path of being treasonous. Basically, you're not
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allowed to object to your position. You're not allowed to do what the Clarity Act and the Supreme
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Court says you can do. You're not allowed to do what Quebec has done twice. And if you dare to speak
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back, we're going to call you basically the worst crime in the book. My fourth observation
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is that when you listen to an anti-separatist, it's sort of like an inkblot test. It's a projection,
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maybe. They project their own sins or their own ideas onto Alberta. It's a, it's a scapegoat. I mean,
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usually they're anti-capitalist, anti-oil and gas, pro-Ottawa, pro-globalist. So they see Alberta,
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sort of like in that book, Gulliver's Travels, which is a wonderful book. And it's not just a
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book for kids, by the way, but remember Gulliver, Gulliver went to a couple of lands. He went to
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Brobdingnag, where everyone was huge and he was little. And he went to Lilliput, where he was huge
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and everyone else was little. And, you know, they, they tied him down with a thousand little
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strings. That's Alberta in the minds of anti-separatists. Alberta is this giant that
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needs to be tied down with thousands of little strings, social license, carbon taxes, MOUs,
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carbon capture, you know, tanker ban. We have this mighty giant and we have to tie him down.
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And everything that Alberta doesn't like, they like. It brings out their true nature. Very few,
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like I say, anti-separatists actually try and convince Albertans. They're not trying to make
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the case that Albertans are better off financially or would have a, a more sensible foreign policy or
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more sensible immigration policy. They, they know that they can't make the case on the math or maybe
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they don't know. And they just are going off half cocked. But I think most of them just take it as an
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opportunity to virtue signal, like the, the at issue panel I mentioned, whoever can be the most
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anti-separatist wins. I don't know, the approval of the Laurentian elites, more money for the CBC.
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They demand that Alberta be submissive to whatever their ideological pet project is. They just demand
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it. And so they're outraged that Albertans would defy them. My fifth observation is an,
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I don't actually think this is a bargaining chip as opposed to what Quebec often does. Now it can be
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a bargaining chip. When Alberta says we have a demand, there's never an or else. I mean, or else
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what? What are you going to do? You and what army, right? This is the ultimate or else. It certainly
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has been for Quebec. Give us three seats out of nine on the Supreme Court or else. Give us control over
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certain, certain federal jurisdictions like immigration or else. Let us have our say in
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who gets to be a judge or else. There's a lot of or else-ing out of Quebec. It's a bargaining chip.
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I really don't think that's what's on the minds of most Albertans as they sign up for this
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independence referendum. I mean, it, it could be, and it will be. The more real this independence
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referendum gets, the more I think some pragmatic politicians will say, oh, yikes, we better
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appease it. But that's not what's motivating it. It's really not. There's not a separatist industry
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in Alberta the same way there has been in Quebec for two generations. My sixth observation is that
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part of this independence movement is a reaction to the same thing happening over and over again,
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like that great movie by, uh, uh, Bill Murray called, um, Groundhog Day. Um,
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you know, what, what happened to Alberta during the social credit era, during the great depression
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where Alberta actually went bankrupt and the way that Alberta was treated then. And then in the
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seventies and eighties during the OPEC oil shocks, and then during Charlottetown Accord, and then during
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like, uh, again and again, and again. Um, I think that many new Albertans get to understand that
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when they come to Alberta, that's never taught, uh, in Ontario or Quebec, certainly not in Quebec.
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I think people are just sort of, they, they realize they, there was a hope in Alberta that
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Pierre Polyev could reset the country. Just like when Stephen Harper won, um, it reduced the demand
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for independence because people thought, okay, that's our guy. He's not going to favor us so much,
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but he's going to stop the pain. He's going to stop the attacks on us. And he sort of did,
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but not really. He's still appointed kooky left-wing judges. He never really dealt with
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Alberta's over contribution of the country, but he gave Alberta enough respect that separatism
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waned. I think a lot of Westerners were hoping Pierre Polyev would do the same, but now that that
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victory was snatched, uh, away, uh, into the jaws of defeat. Um, I think people said, you,
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you've just seen this movie too many times before, whether it's Pierre Polyev, Stephen Harper,
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Preston Manning, whomever, it's just, it's not going to get better. It's structurally broken.
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I think many Albertans understand that. My seventh point, I saw a little news item that a number of
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angry ND peers say they will leave Alberta if, well, they didn't quite say if what, if it goes
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independent if they have a referendum. Now, I don't believe this. This reminds me of when
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Hollywood lovies say, if Donald Trump wins in 2024, we're leaving. I think the only one that left was
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Rosie O'Donnell and I think Ellen DeGeneres. And I think they both want to come back. Like that's two,
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no one's going to actually sell their house and move, move to where? I just don't believe it. But if it
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happens, um, win-win, I, I think while I don't think a lot of NDPers or other leftists would leave
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Alberta, uh, although maybe some people working for the feds will, I think a lot of good people
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from the rest of Canada would definitely want to join. I mean, I live in Toronto and there's an
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enormous number of people in Toronto who are doing what they can to get out of the city. I think it
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really started during COVID when the city was paralyzed by government, by public health
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ninis and a lot of people who could just relocated to Florida. That's often the laptop class, people
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who could work from wherever, a lot of lawyers, a lot of, um, people in finance. I think that that
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trend has been, for example, let me give you an example. Um, there's been so much antisemitism and
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crime and antisemitic crime in Toronto that I just happen to know that an awful lot of Jewish families
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are looking to get out of Toronto and they're wondering, well, do we go to Florida? Do we go,
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where do they go? I think that if Alberta were independent, you would see refugees from the rest
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of Canada. They would be probably entrepreneurial refugees. They would be people who are sick of living
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in, uh, extreme immigration cities like Toronto and, and Vancouver, probably. Uh, I think you would,
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I wish you would see more of an exodus of the NDP socialist types, but I'm quite certain you would
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see an inflow of good people who have had it with life in other parts of the country. And I think that's
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one of the things that terrifies the antiseparatists. My eighth observation is that a lot of this is an
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oblique reaction to Mark Carney, not just the fact that Polyev didn't win and Carney did. I mean, in the last
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year, look at Carney's conduct. I mean, his, his main dealing with Alberta was to have this complex
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member of memorandum of understanding where Alberta had to immediately, uh, spend money on carbon capture
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and jack up certain taxes. And maybe by the year 2040, a pipeline would be built. I mean, I don't think many
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Albertans were persuaded by that, but put, put aside that just the, the, the carnival of insanity,
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world economic forum, and, and being an anti-American globalist going to China and saying,
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you're going to sign onto their new world order, being an anti-Trump agitator, doing things like
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recognizing Hamas run Gaza as the state of Palestine. There's so much garbage being done
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in the name of Canada. And this goes to my very first point about Alberta independence. It's not
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really anti-Canadian or anti-patriotic. It's sort of, oh, so Mark Carney is doing that. That is going
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in such a terrible direction. Oh, another $50 billion for electric vehicles. You're, you're poking America
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in the eye with a Greenland, uh, consulate. You're just doing all these stupid things, corporatist
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thing, paternalistic gimmicks. And I think a lot of Albertans are saying, you know what,
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how do we separate from that guy? So when people want to separate, they want to separate from the
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antics and the shenanigans. And that guy reminds me when Preston Manning wrote in the Globe and Mail
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that Mark Carney could be the last prime minister of the United Canada. I think Preston might be right.
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My ninth point, I think is my most normal point. It's how would the life of an ordinary person
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change on a normal day in Alberta after a referendum vote or after independence? I got to say in so many
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ways, nothing would change. I mean, there would still be many government services, uh, all the ones
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provided by the province, which is education and healthcare. They would still be provided by the
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province. They would just have billions of dollars more because Alberta wouldn't be sending money for
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equalization or payments anymore. There are some things that would have an Alberta flag on them rather
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than a Canadian flag. Interestingly, I, this caught me by surprise when I first saw it online, the idea that
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people could keep their pensions and their passports. And it's true because those things are issued to
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individual persons. Uh, why and how would they change? I'm not saying that there wouldn't be an
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eventual change with the pension plan, but you've got a passport in your hand. Um, it works. What does
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a passport do? It lets you go into another country, lets you come back from that other country. Passport
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doesn't have your residential address in it, by the way. It just says you're a Canadian citizen. If Alberta
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were to separate it, how does that void your passport? There, there would most likely be an Alberta
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passport and you could probably, if not have both, you could move over to the Alberta passport. But just
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because there was a vote in a referendum, many of the things that you use wouldn't suddenly vaporize,
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but just stop and ask yourself, how many things do you use in a given day or a given week that are
00:20:56.060
actually run by Ottawa? When I look at Ottawa, I think of taxes. I think of foolish wokeness. I think
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of an insane foreign policy. I think of a weak military. I really think of nothing that affects
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me really in a day to day. I get up, I get in my car, I drive my kids to school or I drive to work.
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I, if I have to go to the hospital, none of the things that I do in real life are running from garbage
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collection to bylaw officers. I mean, that's real life. I mean, if Ottawa's dealing with those things,
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it's an invasion of Alberta sovereignty. Anyways, I put it to you that most Albertans would have no
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difference at all in their life. If Alberta were to be independent other than they'd have lower taxes
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and they would be divorced from the insanity that's going on in Ottawa. My 10th thought is that some
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things would change, but I think that's all doable. This has all been contemplated before. In Quebec,
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for example, a lot of the groundwork was thought through. You may recall that Quebec elected a
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provincial government called the Parti Quebecois. And once they were elected into office, they had all
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the tools of a government. They had the civil service, they had government budgets, and they
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studied all these things. They studied questions like passports and stamps and currency and international
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debt and postal unions and international flights. Like there's a hundred little things and you think,
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oh my God, how do we handle that? Well, you handle that one at a time and it's been done before in
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other places like Yugoslavia no longer exists. It's other little countries. Czechoslovakia no longer
00:22:33.460
exists. The Soviet Union is a dozen countries now. These things can happen and it's a little bit
00:22:39.760
discombobulating, but it doesn't have to be a lot discombobulating. Look, Canada was an audacious
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idea, the second largest country in the world. But it was designed as a compromise really between
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Anglo-Protestants and French Catholics. That was a beautiful compromise where, I mean, look at our
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constitution. It protects French rights and education. It didn't contemplate a large, settled,
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bold, independent-minded, individualistic West with more oil and gas wealth than anyone could
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possibly have dreamed of in the 18th or 19th centuries. And so you have a country that maybe
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in some ways is too big geographically. You have deep anti-Americanism that's whipped up by, I don't
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know, is it the descendants of United Empire loyalists, people who left the United States after George
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Washington kicked out the Brits? Is it really echoing from 250 years ago? I don't know, but
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whatever it is, I think a lot of Albertans just don't want that. There's a deep anti-Americanism,
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there's political opportunism, there's rent-seeking, which is a fancy word of saying people just,
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you know, wringing out Alberta like a sponge. It's all too much. If Alberta were to be independent,
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it would not be a disaster. And once it's possible, I think a lot of other things would be possible
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immediately too. From Saskatchewan, which I predict would join its sibling right away, to Quebec saying,
00:24:14.540
well, hang on, can we renegotiate our position? I'll tell you one thing, there's lots to talk about
00:24:20.220
in the year ahead. And we'll do that talking and I'd like to hear from you too. Stay with us, more ahead.
00:24:29.120
Hey, I got a question for you. How bad does it have to be for the government to hide
00:24:37.440
the dollar amount of how much it's spent on any project? I mean, every day, and especially on
00:24:43.320
budget day, the government shows us just how bad it is because they have to, and they brazen it out
00:24:50.100
and they talk about investments. That's just a fancy way of spending. But how awful is the truth
00:24:56.840
if the government will do anything to stop the numbers from seeing the light of day? Well,
00:25:04.800
that's exactly what's going on these days with regards to the gun buyback program. Let me read
00:25:11.240
to you the latest release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. It's entitled, Ottawa Blocks
00:25:16.840
Details, a Failed Cape Breton Pilot Project. Let me just read the first sentence and then I'll
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bring the Taxpayers Federation into this. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is launching a legal
00:25:29.460
fight after the federal government refused to disclose the details of the gun confiscated
00:25:34.560
during the failed Cape Breton Pilot Project. I bet they spent like 10 grand a gun.
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The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on this program.
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They deserve to know exactly what's happening with the money, says Gage Hobrick, CTF Prairie
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Director. The government should not be pushing forward with its gun confiscation nationally while
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leaving taxpayers in the dark on these important details. And joining us now from Saskatoon is Gage
00:26:04.080
Hobrick. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. I just said it probably cost 10,000
00:26:09.360
bucks a gun. No, no. It's probably much, much more than that. I forgot. We're dealing with, what,
00:26:15.000
a nine-figure expenditure? Yeah. Well, I mean, just like in that access and information request
00:26:22.380
we got back, the government's been kind of mum on the entire numbers when it comes to this gun
00:26:27.800
confiscation scheme. I mean, Ezra, you rightly point out that the government's usually proud of all of the
00:26:33.540
money they're wasting on budget day. But even when it comes to this gun ban scheme, they're keeping
00:26:38.280
those numbers close to heart because they know how awful it's going to be for taxpayers, right? We saw
00:26:43.780
way back in 2020 when the government first talked about this program, it would cost $200 million,
00:26:49.660
they said. Now we've seen other experts six years on say more than $6 billion. And when you're
00:26:58.220
spending that kind of money, taxpayers deserve to know what it's being spent on. That's why we asked
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the government this simple question. In your Cape Breton pilot project where you confiscated
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these 25 guns, where the government, by the way, wanted to confiscate 200, what guns did you
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collect? Were they these weapons of war that the public safety minister is scaring us about? Or were
00:27:19.360
they plinkers or old antique hunting rifles? Right? So we asked the government that very simple
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question. They refused to give us the answer, likely because they're embarrassed about what those
00:27:29.700
documents show. Yeah. If the whole project only collected 25 firearms, I think my earlier comment about
00:27:36.320
10,000 bucks a gun is going to be insanely low. You know, it's not that common for police to speak
00:27:45.220
out against a justice minister or a public safety minister. You just don't see it a lot. And I think
00:27:51.120
that's proper. I don't want my police being any more political than they are. But this gun buyback idea
00:27:58.880
is so stupid that one police force after another have gone public and saying, we aren't going to do
00:28:05.180
this. I mean, let me give you an example. Here's the Toronto Police Association, one of the largest
00:28:09.820
police unions in the country. Quote, and this is, I'm reading from your publication here. We know that
00:28:16.320
the gun buyback program is going to have essentially zero impact on the crime in Toronto, said Clayton
00:28:23.460
Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association. And then you note that dozens of local police take
00:28:29.500
the same position. There is a massive crime wave in this country. And it's not farmers and duck hunters
00:28:35.320
and ranchers with the firearm they inherited from their grandpa or an antique that their grandpa brought
00:28:41.920
back from World War II. It's just not. What's the real motivation for this? Because all the police are saying
00:28:48.840
this won't have anything to do with crime. Is it just for show? Is it for them to tell Montreal and
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Toronto liberal voters, hey, guys, we're really going after the gun criminal? Like, what is the point of it?
00:29:03.080
Well, I think the biggest point there is, as you mentioned, cops being political, it takes a lot
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for those guys who are just focused on the everyday of doing their jobs and actually enforcing the laws to
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stand up and say, hey, this policy, it's not going to work. It's a bad idea.
00:29:18.840
Because you mentioned the crime wave we're seeing across the country. We're seeing other police forces
00:29:23.300
like the president of the RCMP union who said that we need to be focusing on that crime. And that crime
00:29:28.980
is not committed by the duck hunters and the sport shooters. It's by people with illegal guns who smuggle
00:29:34.660
them from other countries. And this ban does nothing to do anything with that. The confiscation
00:29:40.380
does nothing to stop that. Because the important fact of the matter is, when we look at it,
00:29:44.860
is if you're, if you have a gun illegally in your possession, so you're a criminal,
00:29:49.320
you can't turn it in to the feds under this program. The only people who the feds can take
00:29:55.360
guns from are people who have followed the law. Really? So you can't just walk up,
00:30:00.200
you can't just be a guy and walk up and say, I found this gun. So you're saying?
00:30:03.940
Yeah, there's no amnesty for that in the law as it's written on the amnesty order. It only applies
00:30:10.180
to people who previously owned the gun legally. Then by definition, you're not going to have any
00:30:14.760
criminals. Like literally the rules say you can't have a criminal do it if you have to have a gun
00:30:20.500
license to turn a gun in. Oh my God, I didn't even know that fact.
00:30:24.980
Exactly. So the only people who are going to turn this in are the people who are the most law-abiding,
00:30:29.140
where even though the government's doing a policy they probably disagree with, they think
00:30:32.580
it's their duty to follow the law. Not a single criminal is going to be participating
00:30:37.140
in this because they're not allowed to. That is so dumb. Let me read the last sentence
00:30:43.840
of your press release. The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Manitoba, their NDP,
00:30:49.780
by the way, Ontario, their pretend liberals, by the way, the Northwest Territories, Newfoundland
00:30:55.240
and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick all say that their provinces will not participate
00:31:00.360
in the program because it is unlikely to make Canadians safer. Like other than Quebec, I think,
00:31:05.320
I don't know if there's anyone I didn't say on that list. Like no one thinks this is a good idea.
00:31:11.000
Yeah. You don't get that kind of consensus in this country unless it's Olympic hockey,
00:31:14.760
which we're going to be looking at pretty soon. You never get these premiers, right? Alberta and
00:31:18.840
Saskatchewan rarely agree with Manitoba on anything. They definitely don't agree with Newfoundland
00:31:24.440
and Labrador. But all of these premiers have stood up, no matter their political stripe,
00:31:28.920
and said, this is a bad program. It's going to waste provincial resources that we want to use
00:31:33.240
to actually keep people safer. All it's going to do is take guns away from the safest people
00:31:38.600
in our communities. It makes absolutely no sense to participate in. You know, even Wab Kanu,
00:31:44.120
the NDP Premier of Manitoba, just talked about how much of a headache this program seems to be.
00:31:49.960
And even his government likes to waste money on the craziest stuff. So when those premiers are
00:31:54.040
talking about the huge amount of waste from Ottawa, everyone should perk up and be like,
00:31:57.880
this is time for this program to go. Yeah. And the fact that they're keeping it secret,
00:32:02.920
how much money they spend, it's insane. I see that your general counsel, Devin Drover,
00:32:07.880
is getting ready to sue if the information commissioner doesn't hand the money over,
00:32:11.720
I didn't hand the info over on how much money is being spent. I look forward to seeing how that goes.
00:32:16.920
I tell you, it's great to catch up with you. We often talk to Franco Terzano
00:32:21.720
of your organization. It's nice to meet you. Gage Haber, keep in touch.
00:32:25.240
Thanks for having me on. All right. There is the Prairies Director
00:32:29.480
of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Stay with us. Your Letters to Me next.
00:32:34.040
Hey, welcome back. Your Letters to Me. On the Justice Center sandwich board guy,
00:32:48.840
Sister Serena says, if you do not put the word pray in the sign, why would they still go after him?
00:32:54.760
Same reason they go after Billboard Chris. They just don't like the message and they're,
00:32:57.880
I don't know, they're bullies. No one told them about free expression. The world is heading towards
00:33:04.360
censorship. I don't know. Next letter is from Ananda who says,
00:33:11.240
sounds like he's protesting his service, not providing one. Yeah, you're talking about abortion.
00:33:15.240
Look, you can like or dislike this guy's message, but to have a sandwich board peacefully,
00:33:20.360
to say that there's no swears, there's no threats, there's no, you know, it's just his point of view.
00:33:26.520
The fact that he's been detained and fined is, is un-Canadian.
00:33:32.760
Oxy Fee says, I see Olivia Chow and the police are upset at your video truck ad about Muslims.
00:33:39.880
You know, I didn't know they're erupting again. We have a billboard truck, which I love,
00:33:44.760
and we have messages against extremists like Hamas. We have a billboard message that talks about
00:33:50.840
deporting Hamas sympathizers who come to country under false pretenses to be a temporary worker or
00:33:57.160
a student. But in the end, of course, just whip up anti-Semitic sentiment, not just the sentiment,
00:34:03.160
but engage in crime, trespass, nuisance, vandalism, in some cases, uttering threats,
00:34:08.520
in some cases, arson, and even shooting at Jewish schools. Yeah, we've got a billboard truck
00:34:13.320
calling all that stuff out. If Olivia Chow is mad about that again, good. Well, that's our show for
00:34:20.280
the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,