Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Guilbeault applauds Alberta's early phase out of coal, gets proven wrong days later

00:00:00.000 Stephen Gilbeau applauds Alberta's early phase out of coal, then he gets proven wrong yet again

00:00:05.840 just days later. It's July 12th, 2024. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:12.020 You're ready for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.96

00:00:27.260 Today's Ezra Levant Show monologue takes us back to a dark era where all hope seemed lost. It was a time of great sadness, job losses, business closures, and despair.

00:00:38.160 Yes, I'm talking about the NDP years here in Alberta, 2015 to 2019.

00:00:44.720 You see, in a flash of disgust at 40-plus years of old progressive conservative corruption,

00:00:50.320 and thanks to a vote split on the right between the Wildrose and the old PCs,

00:00:54.380 Albertans elected the far-left-wing anti-fossil fuel New Democrat Party

00:00:58.620 to lead one of the most right-wing and pro-fossil fuel places in North America, if not the world.

00:01:04.040 The collective we, and I don't mean we, burned the house down because we didn't like the wallpaper in the kitchen.

00:01:12.140 It also ushered in one of the most economically devastating periods in Alberta's history,

00:01:19.080 one which we are only now beginning to recover from.

00:01:23.080 Instead of Stephen Harper's slow and steady conservative so-called hidden agenda,

00:01:27.340 Premier Rachel Notley's radical green socialists got right to work undoing the fabric of Alberta's economy, 0.99

00:01:33.340 first a carbon tax, then an attempt to put bankers' hours on family farms through Bill 6.

00:01:39.320 All of this led to a series of credit downgrades,

00:01:42.120 and then there was the accelerated phase-out of Alberta's coal-fired electricity.

00:01:47.580 Alberta, for those of you who don't know,

00:01:49.980 has hundreds of years of some of the world's cleanest burning coal under our feet.

00:01:54.860 And unfortunately, that's where it will all stay.

00:01:57.940 Because with the radical socialists in power here in Alberta,

00:02:02.720 and Justin Trudeau's liberals in power in Alberta,

00:02:06.020 came a game of environmental one-upmanship,

00:02:08.860 where the loser was always Alberta.

00:02:11.960 Trudeau planned to phase out coal-fired electricity across the country by 2030,

00:02:15.840 yet the NDP accelerated that by setting a goal of 2023.

00:02:19.720 That resulted in economic carnage for Alberta and the electricity companies themselves.

00:02:26.620 Alberta taxpayers had to pay three power companies,

00:02:30.100 Atco, Transalta, and Capital Power,

00:02:32.500 $97 million per year,

00:02:35.020 payable until 2030,

00:02:36.820 to shut down six of 18 power plants early.

00:02:40.060 It was a $1.4 billion hit to taxpayers,

00:02:43.740 who were then going to be hit with increased electricity bills.

00:02:47.080 The plan, according to the NDP,

00:02:50.620 was to rapidly replace coal electricity on the grid with natural gas.

00:02:54.700 But something was happening in the attitude of investment to Canada,

00:02:58.440 and Alberta specifically,

00:02:59.960 that would leave us in the dangerous spot we find ourselves now.

00:03:03.760 And I really do mean dangerous.

00:03:05.820 Some context.

00:03:07.420 In Ottawa, Justin Trudeau's liberals,

00:03:09.420 who are anti-oil radicals in their own right,

00:03:12.020 passed legislation to make sure that pipelines were never built again.

00:03:15.040 They appointed activists like Catherine McKenna

00:03:18.840 to head the environment ministry and other key ministries.

00:03:22.540 The liberals polluted the upper levels of the bureaucracy

00:03:25.960 with foreign-funded activists from large multinational green charities.

00:03:31.280 In Alberta, our own Premier Rachel Notley acted like a scarecrow, 0.99

00:03:36.340 standing in the field to shoo away oil and gas investment

00:03:39.280 to friendlier jurisdictions like North Dakota, Texas, or Iraq.

00:03:44.080 Notley did the same as her ally Trudeau in Ottawa.

00:03:47.560 She put anti-oil MLAs in charge of key ministries.

00:03:52.020 Shannon Phillips, who once co-authored a book about how to block a pipeline

00:03:55.860 with Greenpeace activist Mike Adima, was plunked right into cabinet.

00:04:00.520 The Oil Sands Advisory Group,

00:04:02.180 a panel convened to steer the future of that great resource,

00:04:05.680 was colonized by Forest Ethics' own Sappora Berman and her ilk. 0.72

00:04:09.940 What resulted was exactly what was intended.

00:04:13.980 Blocked pipelines, canceled projects, investment flight, mass layoffs,

00:04:17.820 and a gutting of Calgary's once-vibrant downtown core

00:04:21.220 where the oil companies used to have their head offices.

00:04:26.420 So coal is being taken offline and natural gas is supposed to replace it.

00:04:31.020 Okay, but if you were a natural gas company seeing what was happening in coal

00:04:37.060 and in the oil and gas sector,

00:04:39.040 thanks to two levels of government being adversarial to fossil fuels,

00:04:43.320 would you invest billions of dollars in the Alberta power grid?

00:04:47.940 They didn't, at least not early enough.

00:04:50.140 And now Alberta has grid alerts.

00:04:53.060 This place, rich with natural resources,

00:04:56.580 with hundreds of years of coal under our feet,

00:04:59.160 natural gas and bitumen seeping out of the ground,

00:05:02.900 it doesn't have enough energy to keep the lights on in the wintertime

00:05:06.260 and run our furnaces simultaneously.

00:05:09.220 This past winter, during a very seasonal deep freeze,

00:05:13.560 where we saw minus 53 at my farm,

00:05:15.480 Albertans received an amber-style alert on their phones,

00:05:20.700 warning that we faced a catastrophic grid failure

00:05:24.320 if we didn't immediately reduce our energy use.

00:05:27.880 Our diminished grid could not keep up.

00:05:31.560 All that coal and not enough electricity

00:05:34.320 and not enough brains or humility in the federal government to reverse course,

00:05:38.960 even as the new Alberta Premier, Daniel Smith, fights back.

00:05:43.060 Alberta's last coal-fired generation station swapped over June 18th,

00:05:48.760 with capital power announcing that Genesee has ceased coal operations.

00:05:53.300 It's now gas-fueled.

00:05:55.120 And a jubilant environment minister and former Greenpeacer in his own right,

00:05:58.580 Stephen Gilbeau, lauded the announcement on July 5th.

00:06:02.800 He posted on X,

00:06:04.920 to those who say we can't build a cleaner grid quickly,

00:06:08.140 Alberta just phased out coal today, six years ahead of schedule.

00:06:11.300 When Canadians set their mind to it, we can accomplish anything.

00:06:16.500 Except, well, except the only thing we accomplished was yet another grid alert.

00:06:22.520 Three days later, as the temperature touched 28 degrees Celsius in Alberta,

00:06:27.860 the Alberta Electric System Operator, or the AESO, announced a grid alert.

00:06:34.000 Alberta's grid could not keep up with the demand caused by the increased usage,

00:06:37.880 thanks to seasonal summer temperatures.

00:06:42.220 See, Alberta didn't get off coal. 1.00

00:06:44.180 We just got off coal jobs here and coal royalties.

00:06:48.000 We still use coal-fired electricity.

00:06:50.780 We get up from our friends in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and Montana,

00:06:54.480 when our flawed grid can't keep up. 1.00

00:06:57.660 The only thing Gilbeau accomplished is looking like an idiot, 1.00

00:07:01.520 which would be funny, but again, Albertans pay the price. 0.99

00:07:04.880 Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science joins us after the break

00:07:07.840 to further explain what's going on in Alberta's electricity system.

00:07:12.660 Stay with us.

00:07:17.100 So you heard my theories in the monologue about why I think Alberta is getting these grid alerts,

00:07:22.880 but I thought I'd call in a bit of an expert.

00:07:25.840 My friend Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science, who is very humble,

00:07:29.920 would probably not consider herself an expert, but I think she's one of the people

00:07:33.580 in this province and probably in this country who most carefully watches

00:07:37.640 the electricity grid and the problems with it.

00:07:40.580 So, Michelle, thanks so much for joining me.

00:07:43.660 Tell us, Alberta gets these grid alerts now.

00:07:46.920 They seem routine, which is bizarre in a place that has so much natural resource wealth.

00:07:53.180 We get them when it's hot.

00:07:54.520 We get them when it's cold.

00:07:56.000 What's going on with the scarcity in our power grid?

00:07:58.440 Well, basically, coal phase-out, as you mentioned just before we went on air.

00:08:05.280 That's the fundamental problem.

00:08:07.240 We had a number of excellent coal-fired power plants.

00:08:12.100 I think the Keep Hills, when it was opened, was the top plant in North America

00:08:17.960 in terms of emissions reduction and management.

00:08:20.780 The NDP wanted to phase out coal early, and the objective was originally that the older

00:08:29.780 coal plants would all go offline by 2030, but the newest ones, like Keep Hills, would continue

00:08:35.580 operating to the end of their useful life, which would have left us that reserve capacity.

00:08:41.720 Instead, now we're having to build replacement gas plants or to convert existing coal plants

00:08:48.260 to gas plants, and the thing is, we have no reserve capacity like we used to have.

00:08:55.600 If you look at the 2022 ISO market statistics report, you find there's a huge drop in reserve capacity.

00:09:03.920 That means the extra power that you could ramp up in the event that a plant goes offline for some reason,

00:09:12.080 which does happen, especially in extreme weather conditions, or some other sudden surge that might

00:09:20.520 trigger like a big lightning storm or very extreme weather of some kind that might trigger a power

00:09:28.420 outage somewhere, and you have to try and get the system back up and running.

00:09:32.640 We don't have that anymore, so we rely on imports from coal-fired power in Saskatchewan and coal-fired power

00:09:41.600 in Montana and some hydro from BC.

00:09:45.060 BC right now, of course, is in a drought, and they have a problem with their hydro facilities because of that.

00:09:51.320 So, that's the main reason why we're facing these problems, and you see, the weather is also regional.

00:09:59.240 So, you know, when there's an extreme weather condition, quite often, like for instance, the wind will just die off.

00:10:07.580 So, that's what happened in this past event.

00:10:09.720 The sun was producing a lot, lots of solar during the day, but as the sun goes down, you lose all that solar,

00:10:16.240 and there was no wind.

00:10:18.260 And if you look at, Brian Zinchuk did an analysis of it, and he was kind of mocking the fact that the Pembina Institute

00:10:25.380 had said, oh, yay, we went off coal, we're coal-free, first time in years, and two days later, we're grid alert, ah!

00:10:33.240 So, and Pembina was saying, you know, renewable energy is the most cost-efficient.

00:10:40.200 Well, it's not if you're facing potential blackouts, because they cost a lot of money.

00:10:47.280 And at that time, Reliable Alberta was tweeting that on July the 9th, at this moment,

00:10:55.620 98% of Alberta's electricity is produced by fossil fuels.

00:10:59.220 Wind is at 2.9% of capacity and producing 1.3% of total generation,

00:11:05.320 while solar is at 8.2% and producing 1.27%.

00:11:10.580 So, obviously, they're not producing up to their capacity.

00:11:15.320 And at the same time, we're importing 420 megawatts, or 4% of power, which we have to pay for.

00:11:22.580 Now, one other thing I'd like to mention, you know, some people online were saying,

00:11:26.960 oh, well, you know, obviously the thermal operators shut down their plant to drive up prices and mess things up.

00:11:34.460 You know, these are very sophisticated plants.

00:11:38.180 They take a long time to start up.

00:11:40.300 And in extreme conditions like heat, extreme heat or extreme cold, they're mechanical and they can fail.

00:11:47.220 And if there's a risk to the plant equipment, they cannot operate.

00:11:52.260 So, and they're allowed to not operate.

00:11:54.240 Likewise, they are allowed to do what's called economic withholding,

00:12:00.340 which is legal and bidding for the price point that they want to achieve.

00:12:04.880 They're not allowed to do physical withholding, which means,

00:12:08.660 ha ha, we're going to shut the plant off.

00:12:10.760 Because if they do that, they get fined a lot of money, millions of dollars.

00:12:14.960 So, you know, that's the situation.

00:12:18.220 But we should not add more renewables.

00:12:21.360 And whatever storage we had, we used a bit of it.

00:12:24.840 Some of the storage facilities were not operating.

00:12:27.180 You can check Brian Zinchuk's pipeline online.

00:12:30.820 But storage is very limited in the amount that it could possibly serve us.

00:12:36.840 The ISO was saying that the peak demand was 11,599 megawatts.

00:12:44.420 And we had just 545 megawatts of contingency reserves available, 11 or 114 megawatts,

00:12:52.860 of which were used to cover the shortfall.

00:12:55.420 So, you know, they managed.

00:12:57.480 But, I mean, that's a huge demand, peak demand, that can never be met by battery storage.

00:13:04.700 Maybe for trillions of dollars.

00:13:08.000 But we don't have that.

00:13:10.720 So that's my rant.

00:13:12.420 Trillions of dollars and the use of plenty of arable land space that we could be doing something better with.

00:13:18.820 I wanted to ask you, and we've talked about this on my show in the past,

00:13:23.200 the difference between the ability of a natural gas plant to ramp up to meet demand versus coal.

00:13:30.520 Can you explain that a little bit to us?

00:13:32.780 Sure.

00:13:33.300 Well, coal plants are not good at ramping up and down.

00:13:36.440 They're very, very good for baseload.

00:13:38.620 That's why even the last couple of coal plants we had before they shut down,

00:13:42.920 they were running flat out at 820 megawatts, 24-7, and almost without fail.

00:13:50.700 And so that's what you want.

00:13:53.440 You want the cheapest power for the baseload.

00:13:55.980 And baseload is, you know, if you look at the province, you look at your house,

00:13:59.780 every house has things that are always on, whether it's your TV quick start, whether it's your fridge,

00:14:06.880 your surveillance lights outside, you've always got a certain draw of power.

00:14:12.660 And the same in the cities.

00:14:14.040 You know, the lights are on in buildings because they don't want to cause power surges turning off and on,

00:14:19.340 plus people do work there at night.

00:14:21.080 Anyway, so there's this constant draw of power that we know is required every day.

00:14:27.560 Fill that mostly with baseload, the cheapest being coal, because it runs all the time and it's very difficult for it to ramp up or down.

00:14:36.560 Whereas natural gas is rather like your gas stove or more closer to a jet engine, actually.

00:14:45.840 But this jet engine is strapped to the ground and the other one's strapped to a plane.

00:14:50.520 But, you know, it can turn up and down very quickly and respond to these changes in solar and wind,

00:14:56.940 because the wind can drop off dramatically and quickly.

00:15:00.360 And so can the sun, you know, clouds going overhead.

00:15:03.780 If you look at some of the grid alerts we've had in the past, I think it was after the Travis Solar Farm came online,

00:15:10.180 which is a huge solar farm.

00:15:12.600 So when it suddenly gets cloudy over there, you lose like 400 megawatts of solar generation.

00:15:20.960 So, you know, we need more gas plants.

00:15:25.360 And I think back in 2014, we interviewed Evan Berry of the Independent Power Producers of Alberta.

00:15:33.640 And he said that we'd have to build eight equivalent natural gas plants to replace the coal plants.

00:15:40.140 And that's effectively what we are doing.

00:15:42.380 And we just don't have enough of them online yet.

00:15:44.840 So without those gas plants, contrary to what Pemba Institute keeps telling everyone,

00:15:50.500 without that natural gas plant online, we will face grid alerts and blackouts, period.

00:15:59.540 Tell me why you think there are not enough gas plants online yet.

00:16:04.760 Because, you know, the NDP announced their early phase out of coal in 2015, 2016,

00:16:10.340 something they definitely didn't campaign on.

00:16:12.440 And my suspicion or my hypothesis, and I think there's some truth to it,

00:16:18.820 is if you've got an anti-fossil fuel government in Alberta,

00:16:23.700 coupled with an anti-fossil fuel government in Ottawa,

00:16:28.260 attacks on the oil and gas sector,

00:16:31.560 you've got the bureaucracy now polluted with these activists from Tides and Pembina and Forest Ethics.

00:16:39.940 And the investment wasn't there.

00:16:42.180 It just wasn't a safe place to invest multi-billions of dollars in building a gas plant

00:16:46.800 when you have these adversarial levels of government.

00:16:49.880 And now we're paying the price for it.

00:16:51.820 And a knock-on effect a decade later.

00:16:55.360 Well, I think the first issue is really the fact that provincial government,

00:17:00.180 the NDP government overturned federal legislation when they went to early coal phase out.

00:17:05.280 So the investors who'd invested in the Keep Hills and the other big coal plants

00:17:10.780 that they anticipated would be running for 60 years

00:17:13.800 and that they would get a nominal but, or I say incremental but regular return on investment,

00:17:19.200 that it would be a solid investment,

00:17:21.220 suddenly their investment world was turned upside down.

00:17:23.980 That really drives a stake in the heart of investors, period,

00:17:27.960 because the government has shown itself to be very radical.

00:17:30.740 Then the next issue is, as you say, all of these environmental groups

00:17:37.340 and a radical government in Ottawa threatening criminal action

00:17:42.100 for those who build or operate gas plants.

00:17:46.360 That tends to put people off.

00:17:49.220 But the third thing, and probably the worst thing,

00:17:53.000 is that we now have added thousands of megawatts of renewables to the grid.

00:17:57.960 So I think we're over 6,000 megawatts of renewables.

00:18:02.420 I should have checked this morning.

00:18:03.700 I didn't check.

00:18:04.220 You can see it on the Alberta Electric System Operator, though,

00:18:07.700 in current supply and demand on their graph there.

00:18:10.920 Or you can check with Reliable Alberta.

00:18:13.980 Anyway, we added 6,000 megawatts of renewables.

00:18:18.600 We dumped 6,000 megawatts of coal,

00:18:22.120 and we're gradually rebuilding the natural gas.

00:18:24.980 And I think if you look online, you'll see we have supposedly

00:18:28.480 a maximum capacity of 11,000 megawatts of natural gas now.

00:18:35.140 But not all of that is online, and we're still adding more renewables.

00:18:40.880 When you add renewables, you have to add equivalent conventional backup,

00:18:46.180 or you face blackouts.

00:18:47.520 It's just that simple.

00:18:48.500 And the ISO knew that back in 2007, you know,

00:18:52.700 because Alberta was the first province to have a wind farm, 1993.

00:18:57.780 So in those early years, we learned that, wow, you know,

00:19:02.380 this creates huge variability in the power generation.

00:19:06.240 And when you have these dips and surges, that's when you face blackouts.

00:19:11.500 So that's the story there.

00:19:16.080 Don't add more renewables.

00:19:18.020 No more.

00:19:18.980 Please stop.

00:19:21.100 So what does the future hold for Albertans, you know,

00:19:25.140 as we wait for these natural gas plants to come online?

00:19:28.160 Is it just the normalization of the threat of a rolling blackout or a brownout?

00:19:33.340 Is it more electricity rationing?

00:19:36.500 I mean, we had a couple of days, like literally a few days of heat,

00:19:43.300 and we were thrown into electricity rationing.

00:19:46.060 So what can we expect going forward?

00:19:49.200 Well, I don't have a crystal ball.

00:19:51.300 Well, actually, I do have one over my shoulder there,

00:19:54.080 but I don't use it for prophecy.

00:19:56.400 But, you know, that we have seen this all over the world.

00:19:59.400 In Texas, we've seen it.

00:20:01.160 We've seen it in Germany, in the UK.

00:20:04.400 Normally, you just add more renewables, and your grid becomes more unstable.

00:20:10.900 And if you, you know, look, the federal government wants us to run electric cars.

00:20:16.560 They want to electrify all houses so that you would not have natural gas heating at home anymore.

00:20:22.180 You would rely on electricity.

00:20:23.960 We don't have anywhere near the electrical generation for that.

00:20:27.240 And I think Pemba and I just put out a report on meeting our emissions.

00:20:34.280 And who else?

00:20:35.380 Canadian Climate Institute, I think, put out another report on how easy it would be to, you know,

00:20:41.580 make the whole grid green, and we can all go to net zero and run on electricity.

00:20:47.020 It's just not going to happen.

00:20:48.240 There's not the material supply chain.

00:20:51.060 There's not the time.

00:20:52.260 You know, you mentioned about the natural gas plants.

00:20:54.940 These take about 10 to 20 years to build.

00:20:57.220 One.

00:20:58.260 That's why converting the existing plants to natural gas is the easiest option,

00:21:03.540 even though in terms of reduction of CO2, it's probably not the best,

00:21:07.820 because these are going to simple cycle plants instead of combined cycle, which are more efficient.

00:21:12.960 And it costs about, let's see, the Shepard plant in Calgary cost $1.4 billion back in, when did it open, 2010, something like that.

00:21:25.640 So, you know, 10 to 20 years, lots of planning, the impact study, environmental study, ordering, commissioning, building, operating, you know, takes a long time.

00:21:37.580 And investor insecurity, it's a problem if we don't have, and you know, the province is growing.

00:21:46.740 We've added thousands of, hundreds of thousands of people to our population, and we anticipate growing our industrial sector.

00:21:54.040 75% of the electricity in Alberta is drawn from the industrial sector.

00:21:59.360 So if you want to have an affordable and job-rich province, you need affordable and very reliable power generation.

00:22:10.160 Or else, what will happen also, is like in Germany what happened, is industry started saying, wait, we can't put up with this stuff.

00:22:19.440 So they built their own power generation units on site.

00:22:23.760 What this means for consumers is that they remove themselves from the grid.

00:22:27.580 So they're no longer supporting all the costs of operating the grid.

00:22:32.380 And then that falls on consumers.

00:22:35.820 So, you know, in Germany, electricity is now a luxury, and it shouldn't be.

00:22:41.580 It should be a human right.

00:22:44.120 Like, if this is climate justice, I don't like it.

00:22:47.220 It's not just.

00:22:48.680 Yeah, I think we're on a fast track to heat or eat poverty, and Alberta should have known better. 0.99

00:22:54.180 The NDP should have known better about this, but also about plenty of things, given what happened in Ontario when they moved towards green energy,

00:23:02.420 and then they had a flight of the industrial sector to greener pastures because they couldn't afford the cost of electricity.

00:23:10.260 But leave it to the Liberals and the NDP to not learn from history.

00:23:14.800 Those who don't learn from history bound to repeat it, right?

00:23:18.540 That's it.

00:23:19.320 Yeah.

00:23:19.660 Actually, we have a report by Robert Lyman called The Ontario Government Legacy, which calculates all the billions of dollars and the 75,000 jobs lost.

00:23:29.680 I think he wrote it in 2018, 2019.

00:23:32.520 It was a total disaster.

00:23:35.020 So, yeah.

00:23:36.040 Michelle, how can people find out more about the work that Friends of Science does, not just on this issue, but on so many other issues with regard to climate policy and the climate attacks on your pocketbook?

00:23:50.080 Well, please go to our website, friendsofscience.org.

00:23:54.080 We're also on YouTube.

00:23:55.340 We have a blog on our website where we post a number of reports from Robert Lyman, who was a federal public servant for 27 years, diplomat for 10 years.

00:24:06.260 So, he writes very insightful policy reports on the impacts of things like carbon tax and the clean fuel standard.

00:24:14.260 We have a number of engineering reports.

00:24:16.400 We have On the Grid for Alberta, which is like the true cost of wind and solar for Alberta, solar realities versus fantasies.

00:24:26.600 These are all posted there.

00:24:28.200 And if you can't find something, please send us an email and we'll find it for you.

00:24:32.480 And how do they support the work that you do?

00:24:34.240 Because you are really up against the well-funded deep pockets of the anti-oil industry.

00:24:41.560 And you are really a mom-and-pop shop and you're the mom.

00:24:46.780 So, tell us how people can get involved.

00:24:49.200 Okay, I'm the mom.

00:24:50.260 I don't mind.

00:24:52.040 You can become a member.

00:24:54.140 It's $40 for one year, $80 for three years.

00:24:57.660 You can see it on our website under join.

00:25:00.820 You can donate.

00:25:02.220 You can send an e-transfer to contact at friendsofscience.org.

00:25:07.360 And you can just share our material.

00:25:09.220 You can join in the conversation on Twitter.

00:25:11.760 We're on Gab.

00:25:12.500 We're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

00:25:15.960 So, you know, please participate.

00:25:18.400 And we're open to conversations.

00:25:21.160 Like, not everybody will share our point of view.

00:25:23.720 That's okay.

00:25:24.460 Let's talk about it.

00:25:25.580 We advocate for open civil debate on climate and energy policies and full cost-benefit analysis before the policy is implemented.

00:25:36.460 Michelle, thanks so much for coming on Ezra's show, as I fill in.

00:25:40.920 And you're regular on my show.

00:25:42.540 So, it's a treat to talk to you in between.

00:25:44.500 And we'll have you back on again very, very soon.

00:25:46.980 Thanks very much, Sheila.

00:25:48.260 Have a nice, hot day.

00:25:50.320 I will.

00:25:51.060 It's a great day to make hay.

00:25:53.200 Yeah, that's it.

00:25:54.340 Yep.

00:25:54.720 Stay with us.

00:25:55.360 Your letters to Ezra read by me up after the break.

00:25:57.760 Are you one of those unfortunate souls who still watches the mainstream media?

00:26:06.420 Maybe you do it like me.

00:26:08.220 Maybe it's just to fact-check your own biases.

00:26:12.560 I do it all the time.

00:26:13.440 I listen to CBC Radio to remember how awful CBC Radio is.

00:26:18.000 And just to remember that I'm right to want to defund the CBC in all of its pernicious forms.

00:26:26.680 Well, one thing you'll notice about those mainstream media outlets is they frequently turn off the comments section.

00:26:35.100 They really don't want to hear from you.

00:26:37.000 They want your money, of course, extracted from your pockets unwillingly and then given to them thanks to Justin Trudeau's media bailouts.

00:26:47.860 But they really don't care if you like, agree with them, want to support them, or even if you have an opinion that might be divergent from theirs, or maybe even, you know, complementary to their viewpoint.

00:27:05.220 They just don't care.

00:27:06.360 You can just all shut up and just continue to act as their bank account for their failing business model.

00:27:13.640 Well, it's not like that here at Rebel News, because without you, there's no Rebel News.

00:27:18.660 You know, we rely on your support.

00:27:20.920 So why wouldn't we care about what you think about the work that we're doing here?

00:27:25.300 It's why we give you all these ways to get in touch with Mr. Ezra Levant on the show here, but also leave a comment wherever you might find us.

00:27:35.200 Those of you who watch my show know that I give you my email address.

00:27:41.240 I also go poking around wherever you might find the show and looking for comments over there.

00:27:47.420 So today's comments to Ezra Levant's show come to us by way of YouTube comments.

00:27:54.340 And they are not on an episode that Ezra hosted, but rather on an episode hosted by my friend, the beloved David Menzies.

00:28:05.760 And he was, boy, he had a bee in his little bonnet or rather his reporter's hat, his safari hat, about the LCBO.

00:28:15.580 So that's Ontario speak for their government owned liquor stores.

00:28:22.440 The staff there are on strike because they, well, they say it's because there's a plan to sell mixed cocktails in the corner stores.

00:28:37.380 But really, if you dig down a little deeper, it's got nothing to do with that.

00:28:41.820 It's about protecting their monopoly.

00:28:43.980 Oh, and wage top up the way it always is.

00:28:49.880 Look, these people said they were essential workers during COVID.

00:28:54.280 So if that's the case, get your butt back to work. 0.97

00:28:57.860 Get your essential butt back to work. 0.98

00:28:59.560 You can't have it both ways. 0.80

00:29:00.540 The problem is these people are worried that you, the consumer, might realize that we don't need to pay people government wages to take, where's my coffee cup?

00:29:12.060 Something across a scanner and hear the scanner beep and then put it in a bag.

00:29:16.460 Or maybe they don't put it in a bag anymore because it's just intro to band bags.

00:29:20.720 I just drink beer.

00:29:21.680 So I just go pick up the case and go home.

00:29:24.140 So I don't know what sort of receptacle they put your mixed drinks in.

00:29:27.680 Um, however, um, that's not skilled labor.

00:29:33.200 It's not, it's not government wage and benefits kind of employment out here in Alberta with our privatized liquor system.

00:29:41.300 It is, you get paid what the market and your boss can bear.

00:29:45.280 You get paid what you're worth, not a government wage.

00:29:50.600 Maybe you get paid more than a government wage, but that's between you and your employer and not on the backs of the taxpayer.

00:29:56.260 Anyway, your comments, let's go to them.

00:30:00.640 Drop zone 33 makes an argument that I would make all day long.

00:30:06.560 LCBO full-time employees make $31 an hour for stocking shelves and being a cashier.

00:30:12.200 And these greedy union thugs and their members want more, enough with the monopoly and privatize the LCBO.

00:30:18.220 Do it fast, swift and ugly.

00:30:20.580 Like what we did here in Alberta.

00:30:22.160 Ralph Klein, rest his soul.

00:30:25.660 He privatized Alberta liquor in six weeks.

00:30:29.040 Now we've got liquor stores everywhere, competition, things go on sale.

00:30:32.940 Um, and you know what?

00:30:34.380 New beer stores in Alberta, they are standalone.

00:30:38.440 We can't get beer in our grocery stores, but the grocery stores also own their, their own liquor stores, right?

00:30:44.280 So the Sobeys has a liquor store attached.

00:30:46.940 I don't know why they, I have to go out one door and then go in another to buy booze, but whatever.

00:30:52.740 But a lot of these private liquor stores, independently owned liquor stores, are new Canadians living the Canadian entrepreneurial dream.

00:31:01.760 And every time I walk past an LCBO, I think some new Canadian, some old stock Canadian, some Canadian of whatever stripe is being robbed of an entrepreneurial opportunity by the government.

00:31:17.760 It just grosses me out.

00:31:19.520 Let's keep going.

00:31:20.420 John Hess, 9443 writes, these private liquor stores should already be in every province in Canada.

00:31:28.380 Yeah.

00:31:29.100 Yeah.

00:31:29.860 In Alberta, we allow liquor consumption at age 18 and we have liquor stores everywhere.

00:31:38.960 And guess what?

00:31:40.300 I think it's a pretty safe place to be unless you're in the downtown Edmonton core, but that has a lot to do with the socialism there than anything else.

00:31:47.060 And the drugs, but just do what we did.

00:31:54.540 We have a model here.

00:31:55.900 Take it, take it, Ontario, and use it, execute it.

00:32:01.700 Let's continue reading this.

00:32:04.200 These are redundant jobs and these people are just highlighting for everyone how unnecessary they are.

00:32:09.420 John Q. Spartan writes, I couldn't care less that the LCBO is on strike.

00:32:13.100 It hasn't affected me one bit.

00:32:15.400 Okay.

00:32:15.920 Okay.

00:32:16.420 Okay.

00:32:17.200 But what about everybody else?

00:32:19.700 Plenty of other options for our vices.

00:32:21.440 Okay.

00:32:22.260 But what if you want a beer?

00:32:23.700 Why do you have to buy it from a government Yahoo?

00:32:27.080 To use Doug Ford's language.

00:32:29.640 I think their union has seriously miscalculated their bargaining power.

00:32:32.900 Yeah, me too.

00:32:33.900 If I were Doug Ford, I would be like, fine, you're privatized now.

00:32:37.820 You're all laid off.

00:32:40.160 Do what Reagan did with the air traffic controllers. 0.99

00:32:42.460 Last one.

00:32:48.920 Lunacy MR2XI writes, you rebel journalists are always right on.

00:32:55.420 Oh, thanks.

00:32:56.200 People have been complaining about these government-owned LCBOs for like 40-some years, I was told.

00:33:02.980 There's nothing more gratifying than picking up your liquors at corner stores just like they do in the States or Alberta.

00:33:08.440 But we can't buy it in convenience stores.

00:33:11.820 But whatever.

00:33:13.760 We buy to the store next door to the convenience store.

00:33:16.900 Like in a strip mall, it's like convenience store, nail place, weed store, liquor store.

00:33:24.280 It's very convenient.

00:33:25.640 All these clerks have been overpaid for years, shut them down, too expensive for taxpayers, not worth the cost.

00:33:30.960 When I see Menzies on any news, I make sure to read. 1.00

00:33:34.520 Bravo, Menzies.

00:33:35.660 Always thumbs up.

00:33:37.880 Some Menzies lovers in the audience, I see. 1.00

00:33:41.760 Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.

00:33:43.920 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:33:46.820 I believe the boss is back in the chair on Monday.

00:33:50.200 And as the boss always says, keep fighting for freedom.

00:33:57.480 Keep fighting for freedom. 0.94

00:34:00.740 Shame on you, you sensorious bug. 0.99

00:34:13.920 See you next time. 0.96

Rebel News Podcast - July 12, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Guilbeault applauds Alberta's early phase out of coal, gets proven wrong days later

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