Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have a historic meeting in Singapore, and it's a deal that could change the fate of the Korean War. Is it possible to make a deal with Kim Jong-un? Is it even possible to get him to denuclearize?
00:20:56.840He really does what he says he's going to do.
00:20:59.620We are lucky that Trump doesn't pay too much attention to us.
00:21:03.220Because it seems like all the Canadian establishment does is whine about him and insult him.
00:21:08.140And this weekend, he finally noticed it, and he slapped back for the first time.
00:21:11.640But while our pundits will talk about that Twitter slap for the rest of the year, Trump already moved on to solving the North Korean crisis or not.
00:22:14.500To clean up the hydro mess and bring down your hydro bills, to create good jobs and stimulate our economy, to restore accountability and trust, to cut hospital wait times, and put an end to hallway health care.
00:22:34.640After a hard-fought campaign, we know the hard work has just begun, but we intend to act fast.
00:22:46.040Well, the world is riveted by Donald Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore and the possibility of peace for the first time in 68 years on that Korean peninsula.
00:22:56.320Remember that Canada actually fought in that war, too, officially.
00:23:02.200So there are still Korean vets in this country to this day.
00:23:06.260I think a lot of people don't want that to succeed because, of course, Donald Trump would be the hero, and people would rather, some people would rather have the war continue than for him to actually be successful.
00:23:15.960But that's not the only important news in the world.
00:23:18.380I think a major Canadian election happened last week, and if things go well there, our country will be changed for the better.
00:23:26.180And speaking, of course, of the election of Doug Ford as the new premier of Ontario,
00:23:30.920the more I think about that, the more I think that it's not just a win for Ontario, but for the entire country,
00:23:37.660not just because Ontario is such an important population and economy, but rather what it also telegraphs to Prime Minister Trudeau and other provinces
00:23:46.020about what's possible on issues ranging from taxes to the carbon tax to federal-provincial relations to just how to deal with the media.
00:26:07.240And we know the number one cost, Ezra, of governments all across the Western world is people, people and transfers to other levels of government.
00:26:14.380So if you want to save money, you've got to do it with people.
00:26:17.140Now, there's always fear-mongering that conservatives are going to get rid of your kids' teachers, they're going to get rid of nurses and doctors.
00:26:23.020Doug Ford said, I'm not getting rid of a single person.
00:26:27.460How then do we actually decrease the headcount at government, which is the big cost?
00:26:32.360Well, this thing called attrition, where there are people, many thousands of people who are retiring every year are leaving to pursue other opportunities.
00:26:42.000Don't rehire any of those people until you've done an exhaustive analysis of exactly who you need to rehire to fulfill those core public services that Ontarians rely on.
00:26:52.040And if it doesn't fit that watermark, you don't rehire them.
00:27:29.040I mean, you know, follow the law and maybe even be generous with it.
00:27:34.600But if you shut down an entire crown corporation or sold it, I think that's probably a quicker way than just trying to nibble around the edges.
00:27:46.260And I'm thinking back to Ralph Klein's days when he would, for example, he privatized all the registries in Alberta, like driver's licenses and fishing.
00:28:09.060There's about 600 agencies, boards and commissions in Ontario.
00:28:12.500And I think there are a few things that you look at them and you appreciate why they do need to be arm's length agencies of the government.
00:28:19.100Things that sort of, you know, manage our nuclear power and so forth.
00:28:22.260But then there are most others, I would say, you either privatize them, so you get rid of them,
00:28:26.960or you eliminate them and just fold them into government.
00:28:29.600We've been doing this thing called eHealth for a decade now, which is they've brought in hundreds of people to try and digitize the health records.
00:28:35.720It was a scandal a number of years ago.
00:28:37.920A lot of people don't realize this thing still kick it.
00:28:39.960Just fold down operations and hand the digitization over to the Ministry of Health.
00:28:44.500So tons of examples where I think you can find a lot of stuff there because outsourcing, it drives me nuts, Ezra, that the liberal government created so many of these because I think they knew that if there's a success, you can say, oh, look, we were so brilliant by creating that.
00:28:57.080If there's a scandal or failure, they go, well, this has nothing to do with us.
00:29:44.540But, I mean, you know, another phrase I've heard is zero-based budgeting, which is, all right, start from zero and try and justify everything.
00:29:51.700Instead of start with the default where we are, start from scratch.
00:29:55.160And can you really justify these things?
00:29:57.760I mean, I think if you brought in someone, and they don't even have to be like a guru, just someone who's, in fact, maybe even a small businessman's better because they're used to counting every dollar.
00:30:07.840And they don't say, oh, that's just a million.
00:30:10.020You know, a guy who has a corner store, you know, he sweats every dollar.
00:30:14.540I'd rather have, you know, a guy who's run a convenience store and makes his money 50 cents at a time in, you know, selling candy bars.
00:30:22.580I'd love to have a guy like that going through the budget.
00:30:25.060It reminds me of that old movie Dave, where Dave became, you know, the president.
00:30:32.280You know, frankly, I'd rather have a guy who is a small businessman go through because he'd be appalled by just a million, whereas professional bureaucrats say, oh, that's just a million.
00:30:43.120I mean, the idea I write for, I say you get the top cabinet ministers because the bulk of the expenses of Ontario government, aside from people, are in health care and education and debt servicing payments.
00:31:08.980Let's get this done, because as are every few months, there are new bonds that are being reissued.
00:31:13.160They're sort of coming up for maturity.
00:31:15.100And then they are going to get reissued and they're going to get reissued at 2 percent, 3 percent higher.
00:31:19.100It goes a lot higher than the spread is for basic Bank of Canada rates.
00:31:22.540So if Doug Ford doesn't cut now, costs are still going to skyrocket on his tenure simply because of rising interest rates.
00:31:31.300And we've seen Moody's actually downgrade the Ontario credit rating once again.
00:31:35.140So I think if he shows this really polished way to do it, it'll send a message to Bay Street and to Moody's that they can actually increase their credit rating again.
00:31:43.220And that in itself will actually save us probably $100 million a year just by improving the credit rating.
00:31:48.600Yeah. You know, I think Doug Ford should tell all his cabinet ministers come up with 5 percent cuts, 10 percent cuts and 15 percent cuts.
00:31:56.000Show me that. Now, you've got to be aware, because sometimes a bureaucrat will say, oh, fireman first.
00:32:00.700Oh, you want me to cut that much, eh? Well, I'm going to cut the fireman and the ambulance.
00:33:45.060I know I've taken up a lot of your time.
00:33:47.240What do you think is the greatest risk to Doug Ford?
00:33:51.940What's the greatest likelihood of becoming an impediment to him doing these things you talk about?
00:33:58.400It's a good question, I would say, because there's going to be media resistance and there's going to be protesters coming up with sort of silly excuses about why he's so evil and so forth.
00:34:10.320But but but that's really just something you need to ignore.
00:34:12.520I think the actual challenge is fighting government inertia.
00:34:16.160And to your point, you really need to get in and do the deep dive.
00:34:18.740And when the bureaucrats say to you, OK, we found four percent, that actually means there's six percent or seven percent.
00:34:26.720And when the bureaucrats say, here's option A, B and C, there's an option D.
00:34:30.220And you need to find a way to push for them to get that to you, because government inertia, I think, is a powerful thing.
00:34:35.740And a lot of times, you know, Kathleen Wynne, Dalton McGinty, I'm sure they'd like to pretend that they were aspirationally fiscally conservative, showing fiscal restraint.
00:34:44.500But they never tried to combat that inertia. So I think when a deputy minister told them we have to have a three percent increase, they just said, oh, do you really?
00:34:52.080And they said, yes, we do. And they said, OK, fine. And that was how we got a lot of this creeping growth, probably just a lot of throwing up their hands, kind of laziness on the part of the overseers, the political overseers.
00:35:02.200And that's what Doug Ford's really got to be on guard against.
00:35:04.420Yeah. If I may be permitted, 60 seconds to answer my own question. I think the big three are the bureaucratic inertia.
00:35:12.380I think unions, activist unions and their NGO front groups that are going to have days of rage and days of protest and then make it seem like Doug Ford's election was not legitimate.
00:35:22.560And I think the number one threat to Doug Ford is the media. And if they can get into his head and make him bend the knee and make him self-conscious and make him think they're the center of attention.
00:35:36.240To me, those are the three threats that Doug Ford faces. It'll be fascinating to see how it goes.
00:37:40.440It's racist. It's a protest. It's funded.
00:37:43.880But not a peep from the mainstream media because, you know, it's Muslims and it's Iran and, you know, it's only David Menzies or Jews who care.
00:37:53.240Tonya Sound Studio is our friend David Menzies.
00:37:55.320What was it like? I mean, there was a quick part.
00:37:57.620You being jostled isn't the most important part of the story, but it's an indication that these folks don't care about niceties, about not assaulting people or free press.
00:38:14.760Ayatollah Khomeini is the one who started this in Iran, as you mentioned.
00:38:18.600By the way, the trigger for that altercation was, as you notice, I was trying to get a comment from some of the female marchers.
00:38:27.600And that fellow, who I guess is one of the marshals, he was basically telling me that I was invading their personal space.
00:38:37.400I got the sense that he didn't like the idea that I was going to a female Palestinian and treating her as an equal human being, as a male Palestinian.
00:38:47.060It was kind of like I got the vibe, you're messing with our livestock, OK?
00:38:51.320Well, I mean, they believe in Sharia law.
00:39:24.620And to bring it back to the local, Ezra, let's not forget that, as per usual, no permit was applied for nor given by the City of Toronto.
00:39:33.840And, of course, we have a milquetoast mayor, John Tory, who said, well, you know, we'll let the police monitor, you know, the usual hatred, pardon me, that erupts at these Al-Quds Day rallies.
00:39:46.100To juxtapose the Al-Quds hatred, there was also a naked bike ride in Toronto.
00:39:51.920And once again, Ezra, it's the old adage, why is it the people that you don't want to see naked are the ones taking their clothes off all the time?
00:39:59.080And so they had this sausage fest going around Queen's Park just before the Al-Quds Day rally.
00:40:05.760And it seems to be we have, if there's going to be a critical mass of people, well, the rules don't apply.
00:40:11.420But, you know, I kind of wonder if that was a neo-Nazi group assembling on the lawns of Queen's Park, if that was Klansmen, right, odious groups like that.
00:40:20.300Do you think John Tory and the powers that be would go, well, you know, they don't have a permit and we know things might get a little hot under the collar, but we're just going to monitor it.
00:40:29.480Well, you don't have to get as extreme as a neo-Nazi.
00:40:31.360I mean, you could, I remember a couple of years ago when some men's rights activist pickup artist named Roosh Valizadeh came to town and he was practically, I mean, he was denounced by the mayor, by aldermen.
00:41:33.020But what irks me the most, I think, is all the so-called hate police and feelings police that come for guys like you and me with human rights complaints.
00:41:43.040These folks call for the extinction of Israel, the genocide of Israel.
00:41:48.140They use the word extinguish or extinct.
00:41:51.280I mean, they're not even hiding their goal is to kill Israel.
00:41:59.280And the Human Rights Commission people couldn't care less.
00:42:02.920And as a matter of fact, before the parade began, I began interviewing this one fellow there before the gatekeepers realized he was a bit on the Looney Tunes side.