SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Alberta posts a 10.3 billion-dollar budgetary surplus and the NDP are the hardest hit
Summary
Sheila Gunn-Reed and Chris Sims of the Taxpayers Federation discuss Alberta's $10.3B Budget Surplus, the gun grab, and the upcoming Bill 8 gun grab in Alberta. The Gunn Show is a weekly political podcast produced in Calgary, Alberta, covering all things Alberta politics, economics, and politics in general. Hosted by Sheila Gunn Reed and Chanchal Chachal.
Transcript
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Alberta has just posted a $10.3 billion budgetary surplus, and wouldn't you know it,
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the official opposition, the NDP, are the hardest hit.
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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I've lived in Alberta my entire life, and friends, everything is cyclical.
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The oil patch is picked right up, and it is showing on the province's bottom line with a $10.3 billion budget surplus.
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Half of that is committed to paying down the debt, which reminds me of what it was like under the leadership of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.
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But also, all things repeating themselves, and there being nothing new under the sun, wouldn't you know it,
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we got another gun grab from the federal government, another Trudeau, another Liberal government, which always leads to another gun grab,
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and another fight back by the province of Alberta against the Liberal government's attempts to grab the lawfully acquired firearms of law-abiding Canadian gun owners through Bill 8 here in Alberta.
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So joining me today to talk about these issues, the budget, the gun grab, and also another boondoggle on the horizon that I don't think enough of us are paying attention to is my friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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So joining me now is my fellow mid-century modernism enthusiast, Chris Sims, from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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I haven't had you on since Alberta posted an enormous budgetary surplus,
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and there are some safeguards built into that budgetary surplus for Alberta taxpayers, which is exciting.
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It seems to be a return to how things used to be here in Alberta.
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Then we can talk about the gun grab and how politicians have made me dislike minor sports competitions altogether by being just absolutely money-grubbing.
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But Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show.
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Like I said, I haven't had you on since we posted a $10 billion plus budget surplus.
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So as folks know, I like to call myself an economic and many other reasons refugee from British Columbia.
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This is the first time I remember, as in the advocacy world, being happy about a budget.
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Great. So we got the surplus. Alberta got the surplus largely because of our oil and gas revenue.
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So there's a structure that's set up within the province of Alberta where some of those profits and that revenue goes directly to the people.
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Now, our concern at the Taxpayers Federation is that, OK, folks, you've won the lottery.
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So there's this bumper sticker that is so rare.
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It's almost mythical, but it does exist in time and space because I've seen a picture of it.
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Pardon my language, but the saltiness is good seasoning, right?
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Please don't blow all of it and save it for a rainy day.
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Turns around, the Daniel Smith government did just that.
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Number one, they're going to table legislation to create balanced budget law.
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What that means is, is that the province will have to return a balanced budget outside of emergencies.
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We're going to have to wait and see what they say in the law.
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It could be a tsunami that reaches all the way over the Rockies.
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We're going to try to make sure that it's going to have to be a really serious emergency
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for them to have to break their balanced budget promise.
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Number two, they've also said that debt repayment is going to be a huge dedication going forward.
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So anytime they have surplus cash, so not including the actual, you know, physical objects that we have
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in the ownership of government, 50% of surplus cash must go down onto the debt.
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The other 50%, and this is what's pretty cool, either has to also go into debt repayment,
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or it has to go into the Alberta Heritage Savings Fund, which is basically our rainy day fund for
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the future, or it has to go to one-time spending that doesn't increase year-to-year spending.
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This is the third and key one, and it's super nerdy, and we love it.
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Any future spending increases must be tied to inflation and population growth from the year
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We've been asking for that since the 90s, like since before the internet was a thing.
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So to have Premier Smith promise that was really encouraging.
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And, you know, frankly, it's not all that unusual here in Alberta to see something like
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this, if you've been around for a long time, and unfortunately I have been.
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This goes back to the day, like 19, I think 1995, when Alberta first brought in our Balanced
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Budget and Debt Repayment Act under former Premier Ralph Klein, and it took nine years to pay off
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I think it was July 2004 when Ralph Klein is pictured holding up that famous paid in full.
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That's how long it took for us to eliminate our debt.
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And it should be noted that it was subsequent progressive conservative governments who ignored
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the previous legislation and then started debt spending.
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So this is just a return to Kleinism, I think, I hope.
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The language that was being used in the presentation and in the budget itself is very much keeping
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And I know I heard Premier Smith say very nice things about the late Premier Klein.
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I've heard her talk personally about him lots of times.
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Premier Klein had said that 75% of the surplus cash had to go on to paying down the debt.
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But what's interesting is that the other 50% also has strings attached.
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Whereas before, it was 75% all on the debt and the other 25% had no strings.
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But to hear serious dedication and language put into paying down the debt is really heartening
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So before this big debt repayment and stuff during the budget presentation,
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the debt was around, you know, mid-90s, mid-90s billion dollars.
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Now that they've put a whole bunch of money down on the debt, it's in the mid-70s.
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But what's interesting is that unfortunately, because the interest rate has gone up,
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our debt payments, our interest payments are still about the same.
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So that's a big flashing light of, hey, bucko, make sure you're putting down on the principle
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as fast and hard as you can, because you're still out money.
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So it's really good to see them take this very seriously.
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We're just now recovering from having the NDP in power here in Alberta.
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They acted as a scarecrow to oil field investment, just standing in the field being scary and
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chasing investors to West Texas and North Dakota.
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But they also dropped the credit rating here in Alberta multiple times.
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I think it was six times, which caused the cost of repaying their already out-of-control spending
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And we're just now seeing a recovery in Alberta's credit rating.
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So eventually those costs will come down, but we're paying more than we should
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And what you just said there is a great point, because this is bearing fruit.
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So Moody's, which is this big, fancy international investment and financial group,
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before the budget, I think it was about six weeks out, they upgraded Alberta's credit rating.
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Well, they mentioned many reasons, but three of the main reasons were exactly what we were
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Because they were saving for a rainy day, they were putting money down on the debt big time,
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They mentioned that specifically, which I was quite impressed by, because of course,
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But if you walk outside of these studios and you start talking to the pointy heads who work
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in universities and mainstream media, you'd think that the PST is just a no-brainer, and
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everybody goes along with it, and everybody smart has one.
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That narrative, by the way, is really strong within the bureaucracy in Edmonton.
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A lot of the bureaucrats are leaning hard on ministers saying, hey, we need to get with
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So it was pretty great to see Moody's say, nah-uh, you know what's great?
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Paying down the debt, saving for a rainy day, and not having bloody high taxes.
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They listed all of those things when they upgraded our credit rating.
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So hopefully, these good times keep on rolling, but we don't blow it all at once.
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And so hearing all of this discipline come out of the ministry and out of the premier's
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Because that's like counting on winning the lottery to pay for your mortgage, right?
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Winning the lottery is super fun, but you have to save for the future.
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Now, of course, after the election, if these folks are still in government, if they start
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wobbling on these promises, I'll chew their leg off because I have them on record now
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saying that they're going to stick to all of these promises.
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Well, it's even scarier, the NDP looking at this budget and saying, well, that's $10.3
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billion that could have gone back into spending.
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That was one of the things that I was seeing coming out of the NDP saying, oh, this budgetary
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Now, they said it was bad for a different reason than I would say it was bad.
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I look at that and I'm like, you taxed me too much.
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You know, how'd you get all that money, damn it?
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But for them, they're saying that's money that we should have been just dumping back
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So if you do a case-by-case comparison, I forget how my wonderful nerdy friend, our
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federal director, Franco Terrazano, had put it.
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I think it was Western peers or something like that.
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Basically, if you compare per job spending for things like doctors, nurses, bureaucrats,
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middle management of healthcare, oligopolies, compared to other provinces, Alberta's always
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We've always had a higher rate of pay for pretty much all of those different jobs.
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And so they've done a little bit of work to try to pull that back into line.
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So we're closer-ish to, say, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
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And so the idea is just to continuously spray money around without any plan for the future.
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It's great that they have the surplus right now.
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They need to make sure that they hang on to it for leaner days in the future.
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Well, and spraying money around doesn't always get you better results.
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All we have to do is look at healthcare spending in Saskatchewan versus healthcare spending in
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Alberta versus wait times in Saskatchewan versus wait times in Alberta.
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They spend less per capita on healthcare than we do, and they see better results, better
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access to specialists and surgery and wait times than we do because they allow some innovation
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in their healthcare system that we are just apprehensive to do here in Alberta.
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He was a longtime doctor, and he's ferreting out, hopefully, waste and redundant.
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And all that jazz within Alberta Health Services, and he's been assigned to do that.
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So we're really looking forward to getting those metrics from him.
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Now, moving on to another topic that's near and dear to both of our hearts, yours and mine,
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And from a Canadian taxpayer's perspective, just how expensive Justin Trudeau's latest gun grab
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is, and Alberta seems to be leading the way in Canada in standing up for firearms rights,
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for property rights, and to defend taxpayers all across the country.
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Because really, if you are trying to buy back guns en masse from people who didn't do anything with
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them, it's going to start costing people in other parts of the country, non-gun owners.
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And Alberta is standing up with Bill 8 and saying, no, no, you might get away with that
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Like I said, this is the first time in a long time news releases saying taxpayers'
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Like, it's really nice to be able to give credit where it's due.
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And so what's happening is that the justice minister, Tyler Shandro, has basically, like
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And so far, it's more of like a paint by numbers, but the paint isn't all filled in yet.
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And so what they're trying to do is push as firmly and decisively back against Ottawa
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to have our own Provincial Firearms Act and separate from the state, separate from the
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So what they're trying to do is take back some of that regulatory power.
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Now, that might sound boring, but it really matters on the ground.
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So what they would ideally like to do, if I could predict what I think this government
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would like to do, they would like to have more authority put through our own chief firearms
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And right now, that is a lady by the name of Terry Bryant.
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I can tell by the way she talks because she uses language that is even a little bit beyond
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I don't know if she's a collector herself or something, but she's right into it.
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Enthusiast is a better term than gunny, I'm sure.
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And so they want more power put into that office.
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So the chief firearms officer, the CFO here in Alberta would have more authority for licensing,
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regulation, and whether or not, I think in the future, they would be able to dissuade or
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recommend law enforcement within the province of Alberta to carry out the wishes of the feds
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to say seize a firearm from a legally licensed firearms owner who has not committed any crime.
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And so what they're trying to do is explore how can we alter a relationship with municipal
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police forces like Calgary police, Edmonton police?
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Could we maybe encourage them to not act upon, you know, said orders coming from on high in
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Ottawa to go to people's homes and take their property?
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And then if you get into the cost, like you said, boy, oh boy, you know, back in the 90s,
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I feel like we're having like, you know, resurgence of 1990s for like fighting the debt.
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You know, we got the debt clock rolling and we've got a gun grab.
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So in the night, you know, in the 90s, they had the long gun registry and the silly, you
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know, government at the time said, oh, it's going to cost a couple million.
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Well, no, at the end of the day, it cost around 2 billion and it didn't make anybody any safer.
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And that was just a registry that was just writing them down.
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That wasn't stumping out to Brooks to take Brian's guns from his house and then go to the
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next guys and the next gals like the logistics of that makes my head want to fall off.
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So SFU, a criminologist at SFU, guesstimated this could cost another billion, give or take.
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We are more than a trillion dollars in debt federally.
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And we've been told by the police who are on the front lines, this won't make anybody any
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Like criminals, newsflash, they don't register their guns and they don't go legally purchase
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You're just going after ranchers and collectors and sports shooters.
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And that's why the Taxpayers Federation is involved, because it's going to cost you a ton
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And so that is why we're really applauding the Alberta government.
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Anything they can do that trips up and pushes back on the federal government when it comes
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And somebody like me who is also interested in local autonomy, the decisions that affect
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Of course, I reject the idea of some centralized bureaucrat somewhere in an office in Ottawa
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telling me what's best and what's safest for my community way out here in the middle of
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I love the idea of a chief firearms officer that is beholden to the province in which that
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person works, dealing with the unique challenges of that location.
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There are different firearms issues out here in Alberta than there are in Toronto.
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Toronto is dealing with gang violence, and I'm dealing with the availability of ammo
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And then like so many places are so different, right?
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Like, for example, if you're a rancher and you've got long guns or whatever to keep down
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pests, also known as like coyotes and things like that, where can you store your firearm
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Does it have to be trigger locked and in a safety box?
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Like all these different parameters that would work really well rurally, but don't work so
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well if you're, you know, an urban, you know, firearms enthusiast and legally own some.
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You're right to go more local because the person on the scene always knows more.
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And even if it can, if I can appeal to journalists watching this, you know, folks, you know that
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it's the journalist in the field that always knows way more what's going on than the folks
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It's the same thing when it comes to these sorts of issues.
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Now, speaking of another local issue that, you know, we just lived through this thing
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And that is one of these major international sports competitions.
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We just lived through Calgary residents fighting back against a mayor who is trying to build
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a legacy by having the Olympics return to Calgary.
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Uh, residents push back against that, uh, taxpayers organizations push back against that, but now
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they're threatening to bring the Commonwealth Games to Alberta again.
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Please tell us what, what could be the potential cost for that?
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I used to love minor sports, but now I find myself watching professional sports because
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at least they're honest about the hustle, but these minor sports organizations, it's
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like, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme from the government.
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And then, you know, everybody else's hands get involved in the middle.
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Very little of it trickles down to the athlete.
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At least professional sports organizations are honest that this is a money-making venture
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and everybody along the way is going to get money in their pocket.
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Um, these big major international amateur sport competitions, it's not like that, but
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they're so darn expensive and it's us footing the bill.
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Oh, I almost, there's almost a, there's almost a parallel there to like arts, right?
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Like if you're going to some big budget mega movie that's put out by, you know, the latest
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You know, this is a massive billion dollar thing and you're know, you're going to be forking
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But if you go to the independent arts community in these little film fests, guess what?
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You're still forking out money, but it's through all these layers of government.
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She loved just, you know, government should be small, like fit in a small, I'm phone booth.
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Um, so when you mentioned the Olympics, I can't help but think if it was one of Franco
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Terrazano's first things he did as Alberta director is he pushed back hard on the Olympics
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So he, he did a team Sweden because of course Sweden was in the running and he like ate meatballs
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in front of Ikea and he had the Swedish flag on as a cape.
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I don't know what I'm going to do for a stunt yet, but I'm going to do one.
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So what's happening is the Commonwealth, of course, the Commonwealth, you know, Great Britain,
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Canada, you know, New Zealand, all those folks, uh, they actually have their own little
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And so it's kind of like the Olympics, but in a much smaller scale, it's mostly track
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They want to come to Canada for their track meet in the year 2030.
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So like seven years from now, the problem is it, like you said, costs mega bucks, like
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So much so that according to the newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, the city of Hamilton
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We're not going to host this because it could cost around $500 million.
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Like, I'm sorry, what half a billion dollars on a track meet?
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And so what really got me going is that not only are Calgary, Edmonton and the province
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Let's explore that and think about it and spend taxpayers' money while we think about
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Not only are they doing that, they are wondering aloud if we need a vote.
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Like, do we need to have a referendum and ask the commoners if they want to host this
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So Calgary mayor, Mayor Gondek said, well, I'm not so sure if we need to ask this in a
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You need to hold a referendum and you have to ask us, right?
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You can't just assume people's consent on this sort of thing when it comes to spending
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And so they definitely need to hold a referendum.
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We have the province, meaning provincial taxpayers.
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The taxpayers of Edmonton are spending $1 million and the taxpayers of Calgary are all spending
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This is why we've seen municipal tax rates go up, of course, from, you know, Brooks to
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We've seen tax rates go up property value wise.
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So we need to have a referendum on whether or not we want to host these things.
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We're all cylinders firing saying we need a vote.
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Yeah, we're $4 million into this just to talk about whether or not we're going to consider
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And they have the audacity to say, as you say, should we let the commenters have a say
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They're going to push back so hard against the giving people a say because they know they're
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And she said, I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000.
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And I was just like, wow, that's got some serious flex.
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Like that's, you know, I don't want to get out of bed.
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It's like I can't sit and think about something for less than a million dollars.
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There I forget what the city of Franco would probably know a little better.
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What just the exploratory examination of whether or not the city of Calgary could host these
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this thing, the Olympics or consider hosting this thing.
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Like when this is for just to say maybe should we were at four by the time they actually convene
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panels of bureaucrats and experts to also say maybe should we.
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You're looking at like twenty seven, thirty million dollars.
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This is again, I can't believe how many times I need to explain to people the government
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It reminds me, actually, there was a couple of months ago.
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If you do have another second, I've got to be in my bonnet.
00:26:03.780
OK, so a couple of months ago, there is an NDP candidate provincially who's running in
00:26:12.540
But I was pointing out that Trudeau is, you know, he's canceled pipelines.
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Didn't lift a finger on Kinder Morgan, all that stuff.
00:26:23.540
I was pointing it out online and he like tweeted at me and said, hey, you know, we got Prime
00:26:30.460
Minister Trudeau to build us the Trans Mountain Pipeline at government expense.
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And I'm like, I don't know if you know what that means.
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So number one, no such thing as government expense.
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OK, there's taxpayers expense every nickel of it.
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Number two, the company, the company of Kinder Morgan wanted to actually pay their own money
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around seven billion dollars in order to get folks to build and twin the pipeline from
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The government at the federal level dragged their feet so long, ragged the puck for so long
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We've been getting green lights for five years and now you're all of a sudden saying red.
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Now, taxpayers are on the hook to twin the darn thing.
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It's like four times what it would cost Kinder Morgan and not even not cost the taxpayers.
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So just say, OK, well, can we just the hippies can protest, but they can't.
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They got to go over there just to have them go over there so we can.
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Can we please pay people one hundred thousand dollars to, you know, twin this and they're
00:28:00.820
All they wanted was for someone to say, OK, just keep the hippies off our job site so
00:28:08.760
Now we're we've taken a seven billion dollar private sector project and nationalize it to
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And so I was talking to a lot of guys who were there like in Hope and Chilliwack area
00:28:35.900
Apparently, they're stopping at like every foot of soil and like looking for snails and
00:28:43.520
slugs like this is coming directly from the workers that are on the ground.
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So if if you want to know why it's taking so long, they're apparently sifting like pretty
00:28:59.440
And now, again, I have to stress, there's already a pipeline there.
00:29:05.120
They're building in the current easement for people who don't know what that means.
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They didn't have to like expropriate any new land when they built the original pipeline.
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It was on the promise that it would be twinned eventually.
00:29:23.680
It's literally in my cousin's backyard in Hope.
00:29:26.600
Like I've seen it and like thinking, oh, they showed me to like it was all part of the
00:29:34.700
And so just a newsflash for anybody watching, including NDP candidates.
00:29:38.920
Forcing the taxpayer to take this big of a bath on something that should have been approved.
00:29:46.160
No questions asked after all the green lights were lit and all the environmental stuff was
00:29:55.380
More than tripling the costs for taxpayers after a private company was willing to foot
00:30:02.660
And there's no such thing as government expense.
00:30:06.360
It's fascinating how few people actually understand that.
00:30:11.860
Like they say, oh, Justin Trudeau bought you a pipeline.
00:30:13.900
First of all, Justin Trudeau didn't buy me anything.
00:30:22.040
We just wanted the company to be allowed to work and do a lawful thing here in Canada.
00:30:27.320
Instead, they're just building pipelines in other parts of the world instead of here
00:30:39.060
I'm rough on either side here, but this is generally what it is.
00:30:42.480
The property taxes paid alone by Kinder Morgan at the time in Burnaby for the actual easement
00:30:48.480
and the refinery and all that stuff pays for their recycling and garbage pickup.
00:30:59.580
So I understand because we reap the benefit of having refinery row.
00:31:06.720
It keeps our property taxes abnormally low out here because we're subsidized by the refineries.
00:31:13.520
And that's why the city of Edmonton would love to expropriate them from our beautiful county.
00:31:21.160
See, I need to come up and visit and get more of the details up that way.
00:31:26.500
So there's always been friction between Strathcona County and the city of Fort Saskatchewan and the city of Edmonton because a lot of these major projects sit inside county limits and they help keep things abnormally low for the McMansions in Sherwood Park.
00:31:43.280
Um, no, Chris, I should I should invite you to tell people not only where they can find the work that you do at the CTF and support the work that you do at the Taxpayers Federation, but you are at an event this weekend.
00:32:02.580
If you hey, if you're doesn't matter what your thing is, do you want to defund the CBC?
00:32:10.760
We have dozens of petitions on our website about all of those flavors of ice cream.
00:32:16.540
And what that does is we have your name and email.
00:32:19.780
We only ever send you like action updates of email the prime minister now or now is the time.
00:32:28.020
It's in order to get critical mass in order to push politicians in different directions.
00:32:33.140
So any of those topics, just sign up on those petitions and you'll join our standing army.
00:32:39.420
I'm going to be a guest speaker at the Sean Newman podcast.
00:32:43.600
It's his kind of dinner event that he's having.
00:32:47.940
So if folks want to go to that, they can just Google, you know, Sean Newman podcast, Edmonton,
00:32:55.420
I don't know if you can stream it or if it's just an in-house thing because I know there's
00:33:00.020
going to be dinner and then I'm going to be speaking on a panel.
00:33:04.500
Why we need to defund the CBC and why it is fundamentally wrong.
00:33:14.520
We don't care if it's left wing, right wing or space alien in nature.
00:33:18.260
The government shouldn't pay for journalists because then you're just going to get propaganda.
00:33:23.060
So that's going to be the topic of conversation this Saturday in Edmonton.
00:33:29.680
Sean invited me to come and I'm always interested to hear what other people think about state
00:33:36.660
funding of the media because I'm fundamentally opposed to it.
00:33:39.420
I think probably everybody in the room is going to be opposed to it.
00:33:42.460
But, you know, on the off chance that there's someone who says, you know, like, we can't
00:33:47.580
I can't wait to be here to hear those arguments.
00:33:54.180
And Sheila as independent media, she's like, really, tell me more.
00:34:02.820
So even when I'm not working, I I'm still deeply interested in these sort of issues.
00:34:10.440
Oh, we have to have a picture together again, because that way we can prove that we're different
00:34:29.080
The 50s glasses, the temperament, the dark hair.
00:34:36.260
No, I think it's a compliment, but it was funny.
00:34:42.080
OK, well, thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:34:45.960
I like our standing date every about five weeks.
00:34:59.080
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where we invite your viewer feedback.
00:35:05.980
I say it every week and it's probably getting pretty redundant, but it remains true.
00:35:09.600
Unlike the mainstream media, we actually care about what you think about the work that we're
00:35:12.560
doing here at Rebel News, because without you, there is no Rebel News because we don't
00:35:16.320
have a sugar daddy named Justin Trudeau giving us someone else's money to produce content
00:35:21.180
that nobody cares about and that nobody wants to watch, which is exactly the diagnosis with
00:35:28.300
As long as Justin Trudeau continues to give the money, they are never going to get the
00:35:34.840
Now, I give you my email address at Sheila at Rebel News dot com.
00:35:39.440
Put gun show letters in the subject line so that it's easy for me to find because, as
00:35:44.580
you know, I probably get a couple hundred emails every single day.
00:35:47.580
But don't hesitate to leave a comment or what I would call a letter wherever you might be
00:35:54.720
watching us on the censorship platform of YouTube or even over on Rumble.
00:35:58.440
And actually, today's letter comes from the Rumble comments and it's on last week's show
00:36:06.260
He's a journalist over at LifeSite and we were talking about the controversy surrounding
00:36:10.380
Daily Wire's Michael Knowles saying the radical ideology of transgenderism should be rooted
00:36:19.280
Now, he didn't call for genocide of transgender people.
00:36:21.800
Actually, he called for compassion for them, but that didn't stop the mainstream media of
00:36:25.920
accusing him of genocide in a speech that everybody could watch for themselves, but they lied about
00:36:32.020
it anyway because they're just that confident that they're right and that you're wrong and
00:36:37.520
that you will believe them instead of your own eyes and ears.
00:36:45.000
I guess she's talking about radical transgenderism because their actions affect us daily.
00:36:53.020
It's not just that drag queens read a story in the public library to kids, which is where
00:37:02.880
You want to do a drag performance, which is an adult burlesque show in a private venue where
00:37:11.280
there's no kids, great, but I don't like the idea of kids being involved and I don't like
00:37:16.320
the idea of this happening in a government funded place.
00:37:22.060
Whether or not I agree with how you're behaving or what you're consuming, it's got nothing to
00:37:26.920
do with me if little kids aren't involved and if I'm not paying for it in any way through
00:37:34.460
Anyways, sorry, I just thought I would make that clear.
00:37:41.860
Those books are all LGBTQ books that come with lessons and activities.
00:37:46.420
Instead of men and women protesting against them, set up a time for real men and women
00:37:51.260
who can read wholesome and funny books to kids with activities.
00:38:01.500
I mean, the people who seem fine with drag queens reading LGBT books to other people's
00:38:07.960
kids would probably have a problem with me showing up to teach them how to say the rosary.
00:38:17.220
Fight radicals with wholesome but radical ideas.
00:38:20.760
It's time to take actions that matter, not protest.
00:38:25.220
Actually, I think there's great value in being able to speak your mind in the public square
00:38:32.960
It's the measure of whether you are free or not, is can you protest in the public square?
00:38:39.580
Even if your ideas are objectionable to the majority of people, if you can't say them
00:38:55.360
I think there's value in raising awareness and also telling other people that it's okay
00:39:03.860
That was one of the great things about the trucker convoy was that people who knew something
00:39:10.120
was wrong, who disagreed with how the government was reacting to the coronavirus pandemic, they
00:39:17.480
were in front of a TV or in front of a newspaper or social media that made them feel like they
00:39:28.240
But when those trucks started rolling across the country, people started realizing, I'm not
00:39:35.380
I might be alone in my job place thinking this way, but I'm not alone and there are more
00:39:44.420
And you hear that all the time about the trucker convoy, that it was the moment where people
00:39:51.720
And so, you know, are these protests against drag queen story hours, that thing for some
00:39:56.640
people who realize they're not alone and thinking it is crazy, for men in cross-sex burlesque
00:40:03.220
costumes to be reading LGBT books in the public library to other people's children, maybe this
00:40:11.080
is their moment in time where they have that sort of light bulb come on.
00:40:15.200
But with regard to offering an alternative, our show last week was about The Daily Wire's
00:40:22.240
Michael Knowles, but let me talk about The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh.
00:40:27.140
He wrote a book called Johnny the Walrus, and it was about a little boy who wanted to
00:40:32.980
And his mom said, yeah, okay, fine, then you're a walrus.
00:40:35.820
Let's go get surgery to turn your hands into flippers.
00:40:45.260
It's very difficult to get your hands on Johnny the Walrus.
00:40:51.120
So I do agree with you that there is a demand for the other side of this.
00:40:57.500
But it is difficult for normal people who want to have a normal life to step in, to fill the
00:41:05.060
gap, to all of a sudden be, I guess, a best selling LGBTQ author, as Matt Walsh was initially
00:41:15.920
They will ruin your life and paint you as a bigot.
00:41:18.500
So you have to be somebody who's willing to stand up for what you know is right and what
00:41:24.760
is wholesome and good and true to stand up for reality.
00:41:29.200
It's a radical thing to stand up for reality these days and not be scared.
00:41:39.220
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.
00:41:42.200
And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.