Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Alberta's gas price advantage： Shouldn't other provinces follow suit？

00:00:00.000 The province of Alberta continues to set aside the provincial portion of the gas tax to make

00:00:04.520 life a little bit more affordable for us, so why are we the only province doing this?

00:00:09.800 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:00:11.860 Alberta's Conservative Premier Daniel Smith has decided that the province just does not need

00:00:35.580 to gouge Albertans for more money in a time of record inflation.

00:00:42.020 The province has set aside the provincial portion of the gas tax to help us be able to fill up our

00:00:48.680 vehicles, to go to work, to give us a little bit more money in our pockets, to pay for groceries,

00:00:55.120 or maybe even have a little road trip here and there.

00:00:59.620 But why are we the only people doing this?

00:01:01.460 We are certainly not the only Conservative-led province in this country.

00:01:07.480 We're not even the only Conservative-led province on the prairies.

00:01:11.320 So why aren't our friends in Saskatchewan doing the same thing?

00:01:16.500 Why isn't Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe following in Danielle Smith's footsteps and

00:01:23.340 giving some relief to the struggling families of Saskatchewan?

00:01:27.400 Frankly, Alberta doesn't seem to be needing the money. 0.99

00:01:30.260 We seem to be getting by as a province without giving this extra money to the provincial

00:01:35.740 government.

00:01:36.160 So I hope they never bring it back.

00:01:37.700 But couldn't the province of Saskatchewan do something temporary that may turn permanent

00:01:43.020 to help out people who are dealing with Justin Trudeau's mismanagement of the economy and

00:01:50.800 his ever-increasing carbon tax?

00:01:52.920 Joining me now to discuss this and, well, maybe even the cryptids of Canada in a roundabout

00:02:00.820 way is my friend Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:02:05.980 Take a listen.

00:02:13.700 Joining me now is my good friend and good friend of the show, Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers

00:02:18.300 Federation.

00:02:19.320 Far too long since you've been on the show.

00:02:20.840 Chris, how's it going?

00:02:22.260 Oh, excellent.

00:02:23.120 I just got back from a quick road trip up to your neck of the woods near Edmonton.

00:02:27.640 And then we stopped by in Red Deer, talked to the good folks there, and into Drumheller.

00:02:32.060 And we were promoting the fact that Alberta has got the lowest gas taxes in all of Canada.

00:02:36.860 Thank you very much, Premier Daniel Smith.

00:02:39.040 And we want to see it stay that way.

00:02:41.200 We save 13 cents per liter of gasoline and diesel.

00:02:43.960 That saves you about 15 bucks if you're driving a light-duty pickup truck.

00:02:48.960 And that's nothing to sneeze at.

00:02:50.040 I can get a roast chicken and a jug of milk for that.

00:02:52.280 So we're really happy to see that.

00:02:54.380 Interestingly, we're also putting pressure next door on our neighbour, Premier Scott Moe

00:02:59.540 of Saskatchewan.

00:03:00.600 He hasn't cut his provincial gas tax at all.

00:03:03.680 And we've seen an example here in Alberta all this time.

00:03:06.560 So we're urging Premier Moe to cut taxes like a girl. 1.00

00:03:11.600 No, that's great.

00:03:14.100 Now, you actually found the lowest gas in the province, and it's in Drumheller, which is

00:03:21.120 fun because that's kind of a road trip destination.

00:03:23.540 So it's great to have the gas be the lowest at your summer road trip.

00:03:28.320 Yeah, I was really surprised by that, actually.

00:03:30.220 So I left Edmonton that morning.

00:03:31.780 It was about $1.44, $1.45, and then I hit Red Deer.

00:03:37.200 It was a low amount of $1.42.

00:03:38.980 Come around the corner into Drumheller, which is just an amazing place.

00:03:43.320 If anybody hasn't been there, it's special.

00:03:46.320 As a nerd who grew up loving dinosaurs and history her whole life, you come around the

00:03:50.680 corner, you can see the KT line, like where the world changed.

00:03:55.240 So you come around the corner, and after you're finished gawping at all the fossils, look up

00:03:59.460 at the gas station price, and it was like $1.35.

00:04:03.440 So that was the lowest I had found, which was super impressive.

00:04:07.280 And again, that's money back into people's pockets.

00:04:09.640 Like you said, that's a destination for a lot of people, especially families, especially

00:04:14.680 families in Western Canada.

00:04:16.880 My son was counting all the different license plates from out of province, and there were

00:04:20.680 tons of them from BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, even a couple from Ontario.

00:04:24.480 And so it was really good to see a really low gas price, and obviously the lowest gas

00:04:30.440 taxes in all of Canada right there in Drum.

00:04:33.180 Now, you know, it's interesting, too, because, you know, we can compare ourselves here in

00:04:38.520 Alberta, as you point out, to our friends in Saskatchewan, but also to our friends in

00:04:42.140 BC.

00:04:42.680 They've had a carbon tax forever, and their emissions are not going down.

00:04:47.740 The federal liberals have reliably told me that the more you pay in carbon taxes, the

00:04:54.580 fewer forest fires you'll have.

00:04:56.220 And yet, that doesn't seem to be the case in BC.

00:04:59.380 What's the impact of these ever-increasing taxes on the poor people who live in BC right

00:05:05.420 now?

00:05:06.220 I'm really glad you asked me that for a lot of reasons.

00:05:08.960 One, I was born and raised in rural British Columbia.

00:05:12.160 So outside of the GVRD, I was raised in Hope.

00:05:15.060 My husband's from the interior and up north.

00:05:16.960 And so very similar, I would say, in kind of outlook, temperament, independence, resilience

00:05:23.260 as Albertans or other Western Canadians.

00:05:26.520 And they don't deserve this kind of carbon tax punishment that they're getting.

00:05:31.460 British Columbia's cost of living is unaffordable for most average normal people, unless you've

00:05:38.420 got some way of, you know, either living with your parents who are really well-to-do, or you

00:05:43.900 managed to get into the housing market just before it went bananas.

00:05:48.080 A lot of people there are struggling.

00:05:50.200 So much so, Sheila, that when people are buying a house now, having a suite that is rented out

00:05:56.220 automatically is just part of the feature.

00:05:58.560 Like, they just consider that a normal thing.

00:06:02.420 As a two-person couple working professional family, that you will have a stranger renting

00:06:07.420 out your basement is just par for the course.

00:06:11.020 That was unthinkable when I was a kid.

00:06:14.440 And so the carbon tax plays a big factor into that.

00:06:17.780 Not so much into housing, obviously, but into the day-to-day affordability.

00:06:20.960 And so they've had a carbon tax, like you said, since 2008.

00:06:25.540 The B.C. Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell at the time brought in a carbon tax

00:06:29.780 into British Columbia.

00:06:31.060 And this is what's key.

00:06:33.120 They sold people on a carbon tax saying that it would do many things.

00:06:37.400 They said that it was going to be revenue neutral.

00:06:39.820 They said it was going to stop at $30 a ton.

00:06:42.860 They said that it was going to create a plethora of affordable alternative energy sources that

00:06:49.180 people could just tap right into.

00:06:51.300 And they said it was going to make emissions go down.

00:06:54.960 Today, none of that is true.

00:06:57.460 Not one thing is true from that.

00:07:00.520 So it's, as we know, $65 per ton, which is now the mandatory minimum imposed by Prime Minister

00:07:06.120 Justin Trudeau.

00:07:07.220 But B.C. would do it on their own anyway, because they just love the carbon tax there.

00:07:11.720 Emissions keep on going up.

00:07:13.860 And alternative affordable energy sources are really scarce for most working people.

00:07:19.180 On the emissions element, this is it.

00:07:22.260 Remember how I mentioned the affordability and the scarcity of that alternative energy?

00:07:26.520 That's why emissions keep going up.

00:07:29.080 Because people can't switch.

00:07:31.560 It's not like they're standing in a grocery line and they can pick paper or plastic bags.

00:07:36.260 Most people, once they're beaten into a financial corner the way they have been in B.C.,

00:07:39.960 would have switched by now.

00:07:41.840 But there's nowhere for them to go.

00:07:44.360 So they have to keep driving to work.

00:07:46.680 They have to keep eating food.

00:07:48.040 And they have to keep eating their home.

00:07:50.100 So they just pay.

00:07:51.640 They pay and pay and pay.

00:07:52.980 They get a second job.

00:07:54.260 They take out that third line of credit.

00:07:56.580 They borrow money from their parents.

00:07:58.540 They do whatever.

00:07:59.500 They bring in a renter.

00:08:00.720 They just go deeper into debt.

00:08:02.720 And so this is why an economist would call this an inelastic demand for energy.

00:08:06.980 This is why you've got emissions going up in B.C. along with the carbon tax going up in B.C.

00:08:12.560 And as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said years ago in French on Toulombard and Paul,

00:08:17.700 and as the parliamentary budget officer has said,

00:08:20.700 even if Canada stopped everything tomorrow, like the whole country,

00:08:24.020 we all just went and hid in a cave, stop eating, stop heating,

00:08:27.320 it wouldn't make a dent in global emissions.

00:08:28.900 So if your issue is emissions, it's not making a dent.

00:08:34.000 Even if you just taxed people into oblivion and made them not be able to afford any energy,

00:08:38.020 it wouldn't make a dent.

00:08:39.600 So this is where it's really frustrating.

00:08:41.800 We've seen a severe financial punishment of Canadians that started in B.C.

00:08:46.500 It became a trend across Canada.

00:08:48.700 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is using it as a template.

00:08:51.520 And we're not seeing any environmental gain.

00:08:53.480 And it's enormous to see the subsidies coming out the other side for green energy

00:09:02.140 while we're handicapping ourselves with this affordable, reliable fossil fuel.

00:09:06.660 You and I were having a very vigorous discussion about Bigfoot before I hit record.

00:09:11.280 And one of the things...

00:09:11.920 I prefer the term Sasquatch, by the way, but just so we're good.

00:09:14.580 Do you know what?

00:09:16.060 I'll use the language of your people.

00:09:20.640 Thank you.

00:09:21.000 Um, it's just like how, um, some, or my religious friends prefer the term Latter-day Saints.

00:09:29.440 I'll use your terms.

00:09:30.900 Thank you.

00:09:32.620 Um, you know, we were talking about how, of course, of course Bigfoot can hide.

00:09:38.540 Sorry, Sasquatch can hide. 1.00

00:09:40.120 Because there's one road up the middle of the province in B.C.

00:09:45.400 And so there's a lot of places for our hairy, higher primate friends to avoid capture.

00:09:51.000 And by the way, I hope they never do.

00:09:52.580 Because you know what they're going to do if they find Bigfoot?

00:09:54.580 Tax them.

00:09:55.280 Protect the land.

00:09:55.660 Protect the land from forestry.

00:09:57.680 That's what they're going to do.

00:09:58.680 So hide my big hairy friends. 0.98

00:10:00.740 Hide. 0.90

00:10:02.060 And they'll tax them. 0.63

00:10:03.220 They'll tax them out of cave and home.

00:10:05.500 Yeah, exactly.

00:10:07.180 Um, but, you know, I was thinking about that.

00:10:09.000 I'm like, you know, imagine trying to find, uh, Sasquatch.

00:10:12.640 Georgia, I literally do anything, um, in B.C.

00:10:16.000 Outside of the greater Vancouver area with an electric vehicle.

00:10:19.860 And yet the feds are just pumping billions and billions of dollars into the creation of

00:10:26.220 batteries for electric vehicles that nobody wants to buy because they're unreliable.

00:10:32.040 I don't know.

00:10:32.360 You're kind of new to Alberta.

00:10:33.540 So we have this really, uh, as you were talking, um, my wheels were turning and we have this

00:10:38.460 fun thing that we have here.

00:10:39.760 We record vehicle registrations by fuel type, and then we publish it online.

00:10:43.680 So we know exactly how many vehicles we have in Alberta registered on the road.

00:10:48.480 Uh, that doesn't include grain trucks that may or may not be registered on the road.

00:10:52.320 Uh, so we have roughly 3.6 million registered vehicles, which is pretty good for like a province

00:10:57.260 of over 4 million people.

00:10:59.140 That's a lot of cars.

00:10:59.920 We're a car culture here.

00:11:01.120 But there are only 3,500 that are fully electric.

00:11:05.600 Why?

00:11:06.200 Because you can pump billions at this as the liberals are doing, I think $20 billion to

00:11:10.600 one electric, um, battery plant, $20 billion.

00:11:14.560 And you still can't get us to buy these things because they don't work.

00:11:19.380 You can give them to me for free, but I can't use it in the winter.

00:11:22.660 So what's the point?

00:11:24.300 This is it.

00:11:25.140 And this is very similar argument to what happens with the energy, right?

00:11:28.700 Of, okay, you want us to switch.

00:11:30.540 You want to punish us for using natural gas or for diesel, right?

00:11:34.860 For trucking.

00:11:35.760 Um, what do we switch to?

00:11:38.520 There's just a blank stare that's coming from the government in that situation.

00:11:42.720 Uh, there's a gentleman who works, uh, as a scientist in British Columbia.

00:11:46.480 Uh, we happen to vigorously disagree on things like the carbon tax, but he knows his stuff

00:11:51.080 when it comes to the amount of energy required for things to go.

00:11:54.900 And he did the math years ago and said that this was a very conservative estimate.

00:12:00.860 He said that if everybody had an electric vehicle delivered to them for free, okay?

00:12:05.380 Like the electric car ferry brought you one overnight.

00:12:08.660 Um, and you did bare bones, minimum home heating.

00:12:11.360 So something to do with electric that just keeps your pipes from freezing.

00:12:15.580 So not touching industrial, not touching business, okay?

00:12:19.340 Just private use of transportation and basic home heating.

00:12:22.960 He estimated that British Columbia would need nine new sightseed dams.

00:12:29.020 Yep.

00:12:29.740 Nine of them.

00:12:30.500 Um, and that's just for British Columbia.

00:12:32.760 And so this is what we're saying, you know, we're not the energy experts, but we are really

00:12:37.300 good on taxes and we're pointing out the fact that these high taxes and the fact that Trudeau

00:12:43.480 is bent on bringing them up every single year for the next seven years is making the basics

00:12:49.000 unaffordable.

00:12:50.000 So things like electricity, things like home heating, transportation, even groceries, it really

00:12:56.600 affects the price of groceries.

00:12:57.940 Um, so that's making, helping to make life unaffordable, but at the same time, there's

00:13:03.740 nowhere for people to go over here.

00:13:05.860 It's like a policy gap.

00:13:07.780 And so this is where we're pointing out, God, folks, you need to figure that part out.

00:13:12.960 You can't just keep punishing people with these carbon taxes because they can't afford

00:13:16.220 them.

00:13:17.320 Yeah.

00:13:17.960 Like I was just, and getting back to the, like the battery plant subsidies, $19 billion.

00:13:23.360 I was thinking you could literally give everybody in Red Deer an electric vehicle with that money.

00:13:31.080 Instead, we gave it, and I would never advise that by the way, because you'll never get to

00:13:34.880 Edmonton.

00:13:37.520 But, you know, instead we're just dumping it on these, like corporate welfare to private

00:13:42.640 companies to make a widget that nobody wants.

00:13:45.600 Yes, yes.

00:13:46.960 And corporate welfare is exactly the term.

00:13:49.920 And that has been going on now for years.

00:13:53.040 All governments do it.

00:13:54.420 It's terrible and they shouldn't do it.

00:13:56.600 But again, these are mega corporations.

00:13:59.060 Yeah.

00:13:59.200 These are like Ford, Volkswagen, Salantis, like internationally known mega corporations.

00:14:05.520 We are handing them taxpayers money.

00:14:08.500 It's, it's just, it's crazy.

00:14:10.140 It's just, it's a good rule of thumb.

00:14:11.600 When you're trying to think of how much money this is, you can build a pretty good, smallish,

00:14:18.780 but brand new hospital for about a billion dollars.

00:14:23.080 Yeah.

00:14:23.420 So the next time a politician stands up on his or her hind legs and opens their mouth and

00:14:29.220 tells you what they're spending your money on, and you think billions, picture a hospital.

00:14:34.620 Every time they say billion, poof, in your mind, picture a hospital and all the stuff that

00:14:39.440 goes into building that thing.

00:14:40.740 So that's a really good rule of thumb, because otherwise they'll just keep using these huge

00:14:45.320 numbers that don't really mean a lot to normal people.

00:14:50.440 You know, in my mind, when you said when a politician stands up and I thought, in my

00:14:55.800 mind, I filled in the blank, cloven hooves.

00:14:59.280 Then I kept it to myself.

00:15:00.440 I think we read the same book.

00:15:02.380 I kept it to myself.

00:15:04.360 No, I'll say it.

00:15:05.780 No, no.

00:15:06.100 Orwell was right.

00:15:06.960 Now, we were, again, talking before I hit record about this Ipsos poll that recently

00:15:14.940 came out, I think two days ago.

00:15:17.640 And I should preface it by saying Ipsos is not a conservative polling company.

00:15:23.680 They've dedicated at least two pages on their website to their ESG score.

00:15:28.240 So they're pretty serious about it.

00:15:30.640 And their poll was done on behalf of the Montreal Economic Institute regarding various issues

00:15:39.040 and Canadian sentiments related to energy.

00:15:42.160 And I think the Liberals have officially lost Quebec on this issue.

00:15:46.880 And I think energy affordability is one of the things that really mugs people by reality.

00:15:52.200 So six in 10 Quebecers believe that independent producers should be allowed to sell electricity

00:15:58.740 directly to companies.

00:16:01.040 They also say that 51% of Quebecers are in favor of developing the province's natural

00:16:06.660 resources, specifically oil resources.

00:16:08.940 So its own resources.

00:16:10.600 And there's been a fracking ban in Quebec for quite some time.

00:16:13.880 Yeah.

00:16:14.300 To meet its internal demand.

00:16:15.940 So, I mean, and when you look at the numbers here, and you'll have to take my word for it,

00:16:20.780 it's across all demographics.

00:16:22.720 It's men and women across all age groups that agree with this.

00:16:27.700 Six in 10 Canadians are, they don't want to pay any more in taxes to fight climate change.

00:16:33.760 And again, that's young to old, men to women.

00:16:37.640 I think we've reached the event horizon for the Liberals on this issue.

00:16:41.900 I think we've reached full saturation as well.

00:16:44.740 Yeah.

00:16:44.860 Very interesting coming out of Quebec that so over, so a majority, over 50% say they want

00:16:51.300 to develop their natural, that's really interesting.

00:16:54.220 Because they've been quite reliant on hydro, a lot like British Columbia has been, although

00:16:58.640 British Columbia does more with their alternate natural resources.

00:17:01.960 But that's really interesting that they're going that way too.

00:17:05.880 And again, this comes down to brass tacks.

00:17:08.840 If you can't afford your power bills, if you can't afford to get to work, if you're worried

00:17:13.960 about how to afford to heat your home this coming winter, that gets really real, really

00:17:19.000 fast.

00:17:19.960 Because then you're making decisions on what bill to pay and what minimum payment to make.

00:17:25.860 And the last stat I saw out of MNP, which is like a financial advisory group that it's

00:17:30.560 internationally known, and they measure things like debt levels, right, insolvencies.

00:17:36.600 Last I saw, it was around half.

00:17:39.200 So between 47% and 52%, depending on what province you're in, half of the people there

00:17:44.160 say they're within $200 per month of insolvency.

00:17:48.320 That means you can't make your minimum payments.

00:17:50.840 That doesn't mean like you've paid off your line of credit or your credit cards.

00:17:53.840 No, no.

00:17:54.340 This is making your very minimum payments within $200.

00:17:58.040 I think that was a historical high for them.

00:18:00.560 When they did that survey, what I also find interesting is Atlantic Canada.

00:18:05.420 So for a long time, Atlantic Canada, unbeknownst to a lot of us out in Western Canada, who've

00:18:11.040 been paying the mandatory minimum Trudeau carbon tax now for years, Atlantic Canadians had a

00:18:16.780 special deal.

00:18:17.760 They had a cap and trade system through the different provincial governments, etc.

00:18:21.260 So on average, they were paying about $0.02 per litre in gasoline for the carbon tax.

00:18:28.200 The rest of us were paying $0.14 a litre.

00:18:32.000 But that all changed on July 1st, Sheila.

00:18:34.760 Because presto, bingo, bingo, they were brought on to the mandatory minimum.

00:18:39.260 So that first carbon tax went up by $0.12 overnight.

00:18:43.300 And Prime Minister Trudeau has now created a second carbon tax, which is through government

00:18:49.040 fuel regulations.

00:18:50.460 It's a super complicated international credit system on carbon.

00:18:54.660 British Columbia has had one for years, and he's mirrored it after BC.

00:18:59.180 So legit, he saw the price of gas in Vancouver and said, whoa, that's awesome.

00:19:04.340 I'm totally going to make that across Canada.

00:19:06.380 So he used BC as a template.

00:19:10.120 We know, for example, in Atlantic Canada, they have regulated fuel prices through the government.

00:19:15.840 So I think what Franco, my colleague Franco Teresano, told me was that it was around $0.05

00:19:21.140 per litre off the hop.

00:19:22.960 So $0.12 plus $0.05, their price of gasoline went up $0.17 overnight.

00:19:27.800 So that's going to get real, real fast, because it's not just at the pump.

00:19:32.700 A big chunk of people, especially in Nova Scotia, still use heating oil for their furnaces.

00:19:39.440 That's got a big carbon tax on it.

00:19:42.220 You know, that is evidenced in these results, because they break it down also by region,

00:19:47.300 because they did some polling across the country too.

00:19:49.820 And increasing taxes to fight climate change by socio-demographic group

00:19:53.520 can't or won't pay more.

00:19:57.000 Atlantic Canada, 64%.

00:19:59.160 Woof.

00:20:00.400 Yeah.

00:20:00.800 See, that's pulling up almost to B range if you're grading it.

00:20:04.440 If you're grading those essays as a teacher.

00:20:07.220 And again, I want to just reach across the aisle.

00:20:10.400 I think a lot of us are small e-environmentalists.

00:20:13.240 So I grew up in the interior, mostly of BC.

00:20:15.380 I also spent a lot of time on Vancouver Island.

00:20:17.920 I get it.

00:20:19.100 I have hand-sewn my baby's cloth diapers, okay?

00:20:21.840 I buy almost everything used.

00:20:24.440 I recycle everything.

00:20:26.100 I get it.

00:20:28.000 Even if we stopped existing, it wouldn't make a dent in global emissions.

00:20:33.200 So this is where I'm trying to reach people that are like,

00:20:35.960 but the carbon tax, but the planet.

00:20:38.440 Okay, I hear what you're saying.

00:20:40.400 But the carbon tax isn't helping, okay?

00:20:43.140 Right.

00:20:43.760 You know, we are the tax people, but I can't help but read some pretty smart things sometimes.

00:20:48.440 The government of India has been asking to buy natural gas from Canada for years.

00:20:56.700 Hundreds of millions of people in India every day burn garbage and old wood.

00:21:03.660 Like, they gather sticks and wood every day.

00:21:06.700 The amount of heavy emissions coming out of those poor folks' homes is enormous.

00:21:11.620 Not to mention the indoor air quality for a lot of these families.

00:21:15.440 They want to switch to natural gas.

00:21:17.400 That would reduce global emissions and provide jobs here for people.

00:21:22.960 So why aren't we thinking of doing this instead of taxing people to death for driving their minivans?

00:21:28.840 Right.

00:21:30.360 And there's a level of colonialism there that really bothers me.

00:21:34.820 And I'm reliably informed that the left is there against colonialism.

00:21:39.320 But I think you are imposing these policies on people who just want to be able to have a car and flip their lights on,

00:21:46.280 just like I have.

00:21:47.580 And we're preventing them from achieving the same quality of life that we have.

00:21:52.240 And it sort of has a tinge of the noble savage bigotry that I just cannot abide.

00:22:00.500 There was a lady I was listening to the other day.

00:22:02.620 Forgive me, I can't remember her name.

00:22:04.040 She was doing a neat lecture online.

00:22:06.940 And she was comparing it.

00:22:09.140 And again, let's talk India because they're a democracy and, you know,

00:22:12.060 we can kind of relate to them a little bit easier in some cases.

00:22:14.740 And we sell so many other things to them.

00:22:17.500 Yeah.

00:22:17.820 Canola, pulses.

00:22:18.860 Like, we do trade deals with them all the time.

00:22:22.780 So this is just another trade deal we should be doing.

00:22:26.240 So, yeah.

00:22:26.680 So it's an easier thought process for sure.

00:22:28.640 And she, I forget, again, I forget her name.

00:22:30.940 I apologize.

00:22:31.580 But she had basically said, read back into Dickens.

00:22:35.600 Okay.

00:22:36.000 Read back into the time where we were in the middle of the Industrial Revolution in places like England.

00:22:41.480 Okay.

00:22:41.700 The workshop of the world.

00:22:42.940 Their emissions were so thick and their particulates were so thick that it would combine with the fog and the stench coming up off of the ground where people were still using horses.

00:22:53.900 And I won't even get into it.

00:22:55.160 It was pretty gross on the streets.

00:22:57.080 And it was causing like pea supers that were so thick that people were getting hit by carriages because they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces because of the smog.

00:23:06.140 I happen to know because I read history a lot that back in those days, women were sent out to the country when they were expecting a baby because it was cleaner air for them and they wouldn't get rickets as easily.

00:23:17.780 Okay.

00:23:18.180 And so this lady was making this comparison saying, why are we insisting that some families in other countries stop in the middle of that? 0.99

00:23:27.180 Like, cease.

00:23:28.980 You are in the middle of an Industrial Revolution, but you're not allowed to go further.

00:23:33.220 You can't buy cleaner energy like natural gas.

00:23:37.240 Why?

00:23:38.580 Like, I'm just asking.

00:23:40.300 Like, I'm not an international trade expert.

00:23:42.680 Maybe there's a reason, but that doesn't sound...

00:23:45.080 There's got to be a better reason than this.

00:23:47.060 And there's got to be a better solution.

00:23:48.740 And again, I can't stress enough.

00:23:50.880 We have got record demand for food banks across Canada.

00:23:54.480 So here in Alberta, like we're pointing out, we do have it better.

00:23:58.980 Okay.

00:23:59.280 It is more affordable.

00:24:00.720 I want to give credit where it's due and it's smart of them to do that.

00:24:03.920 But we're seeing record demand for food banks across the country.

00:24:07.420 And I dug into that a little bit more because you probably saw the note on that, Sheila, a few months ago.

00:24:13.520 Increasing demand mostly from working families.

00:24:16.460 Yeah.

00:24:17.540 So let's break that down what that really means.

00:24:20.460 What's a working family going to a food bank?

00:24:22.260 That means if you're a parent and you're working a job, you're still counting on donated peanut butter to feed your kid.

00:24:31.440 And cans of applesauce.

00:24:33.920 That's brutal.

00:24:35.960 Okay.

00:24:36.380 And the carbon taxes are a big reason why things are becoming unaffordable for working people in Canada.

00:24:44.280 So this is not working.

00:24:46.320 Okay.

00:24:46.560 All it's doing is creating this huge cash grab from the government, taking away from people, and is not helping the environment.

00:24:54.460 So this is where we're urging smart people in Ottawa to wise up and do the right thing.

00:25:00.560 Interestingly, I think I just saw this in Manitoba.

00:25:05.040 It was the leadership of the NDP, the party, saying we need to cut gas tax.

00:25:10.280 Yeah.

00:25:10.660 What?

00:25:11.300 Why?

00:25:12.100 Well, because of affordability.

00:25:14.080 That's really interesting.

00:25:15.560 Because if they cut their gas tax in full, that would negate the cost of Trudeau's carbon tax.

00:25:20.960 It would completely take the sting out of it because it's the equivalent amount.

00:25:24.260 There's a knock-on effect.

00:25:26.140 As you were talking there, I thought, you know, not only is it making, it's turning more people to food banks,

00:25:31.480 but it's also making it harder for people who have a little bit extra to donate to the food banks.

00:25:40.420 So the food banks are shrinking, but the demand is rising.

00:25:43.920 Yes.

00:25:44.540 All because of affordability.

00:25:46.800 Exactly.

00:25:47.400 Because they don't have as much extra now to give to that food bank.

00:25:51.800 Also, even if they're just buying at the store, so say you want to buy an extra jar of peanut butter and put it in the hamper as you're leaving,

00:25:58.600 that jar of peanut butter is now almost eight bucks, whereas before it was around five bucks, four bucks.

00:26:06.040 So that means that you now will have less money in order to buy that purchase and then give it to the food bank,

00:26:12.920 or even to have money, because some people prefer to give money to the food bank,

00:26:16.180 to when the cashier asks you, you know, can you donate this?

00:26:20.520 The answer is going to more likely than often be no now because people have less money.

00:26:25.920 And so this is where we're imploring the government that, you know, good intentions and saying things like,

00:26:31.900 but this is for the environment, don't actually make a difference to people if it's impoverishing them and it's not helping the environment.

00:26:39.880 And so this is where we're saying, scrap the carbon taxes, leave more money in the pockets of working people,

00:26:45.620 and they will be able to do good things with them.

00:26:48.580 We're not the environment experts, but if you want to tackle things like emissions, deal with the big end of the arithmetic problem.

00:26:55.340 So international emissions.

00:26:56.960 Also here at home, there's ways of capturing CO2 as an element and just think of it as recycling.

00:27:04.300 Instead of just letting it fritter off into the atmosphere, get a company without government money,

00:27:10.120 get a company to capture it and utilize it as a recycled element.

00:27:13.180 Like we do with aluminum or glass or other products.

00:27:17.740 So there's other ways of doing this that doesn't require impoverishing working people and forcing them to go to food banks.

00:27:25.380 Next time you're around, we should go to the carbon capture site up the road from me.

00:27:29.200 It's very fascinating.

00:27:29.700 Oh, I've never seen one.

00:27:30.760 I would love to see one.

00:27:31.940 Yes.

00:27:32.660 Is it real and functioning?

00:27:34.820 It is.

00:27:35.400 It is.

00:27:35.760 The reason we are, as they say, Upgrader Alley is because we have salt caverns underneath us, underneath the farms.

00:27:44.100 There's big, massive salt caverns, and then they inject the CO2 underneath as part of their carbon capture

00:27:49.280 and just store it down there until they figure out what to do with it and how to use it and turn it into something better than pollution, as the feds call it.

00:27:59.180 But so next time you're around, we should do that together.

00:28:02.460 I think it'll be fun.

00:28:03.560 Look at us being a bunch of nerds.

00:28:04.000 Yeah, let's totally do that.

00:28:04.860 It's a day.

00:28:06.100 What a bunch of nerds we are.

00:28:09.580 Chris, tell us how people can support the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:28:13.080 You guys do great work.

00:28:14.860 You are completely independent of government funding.

00:28:18.080 And I think that's why we love you and that's why we know we can trust you.

00:28:22.040 Thank you.

00:28:22.500 So for folks who aren't aware of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we were founded in 1990, so before the internet was a thing.

00:28:30.580 We are non-partisan.

00:28:32.120 We don't care what color jersey the politician's wearing.

00:28:35.080 We want low taxes, less waste, and more accountable government.

00:28:38.260 Okay?

00:28:38.960 Period.

00:28:40.060 So depending on what your thing is, this is the best way to help us.

00:28:43.400 Go to our website, taxpayer.com.

00:28:45.880 Go through our petitions list.

00:28:48.240 Pick which ones you like.

00:28:49.880 There's something there for everybody.

00:28:51.000 If you want to oppose the gun grab, we've got a petition for that.

00:28:54.020 If you don't think journalists should be paid by the government, we've got a petition for that to defund the CBC.

00:28:59.400 Yeah.

00:28:59.940 If you want to scrap the carbon taxes, based on what Sheila and I have just been talking about, sign up for that.

00:29:05.680 And what that does is, see, you join the taxpayer army that way.

00:29:09.680 Okay?

00:29:09.980 And so the next time an issue comes up in Edmonton or Ottawa, depending on what it is, we will send you like a mobilizing email saying, flood the minister's email right now.

00:29:21.220 It's critical mass.

00:29:22.540 And we actually get changes to happen.

00:29:25.080 Okay?

00:29:25.300 So, for example, just recently here in Alberta, they scrapped their silly idea to host the Commonwealth Games, which was going to cost us probably more than a billion dollars building wooden circular...

00:29:36.220 What?

00:29:36.520 I ended up being anti-Olympics there for a while because of Calgary.

00:29:42.340 I'm like, wait, do I not like the Olympics now?

00:29:43.820 No, I don't.

00:29:44.540 I don't want to have to pay for it.

00:29:45.720 So same thing with Commonwealth Games.

00:29:47.620 This is it.

00:29:48.220 So they said no to the Calgary Winter Games.

00:29:50.700 Okay?

00:29:50.940 So hockey and downhill skiing.

00:29:53.160 Why are we going to spend a billion dollars on indoor circular wooden racing tracks for bicycles? 0.62

00:29:58.420 Like, no, let's not do that.

00:30:00.260 So any of those things that really get you going, sign on to those petitions and then you join our army and we're actually able to cause change to happen in a grassroots, citizen, nonpartisan way.

00:30:13.400 Chris, thanks so much for the work that you do advocating for families like mine all across this country, but particularly here in Alberta, boy, are we sure glad to have you.

00:30:23.640 Thank you.

00:30:24.700 Thanks.

00:30:25.460 We'll have you back on again very, very soon.

00:30:29.320 I'll try to avoid the cryptid talk.

00:30:31.040 I know it turns off some of my viewers, but it's my show, so whatever.

00:30:35.560 It's so fun, though.

00:30:37.720 Honestly.

00:30:39.000 I know.

00:30:39.320 It's one of those things where you can either – I get so bogged down with real stuff and government stuff.

00:30:45.240 And I actually do think it's real, so I don't mean it like it's not real.

00:30:48.080 But I like more whimsical things, magical things, right?

00:30:52.880 Because it gives me hope that there's more to life than, like, death and taxes, as they say.

00:30:59.140 So I think it's great.

00:31:00.340 Do you – are you friends with – if I've got you still for a second – are you friends with Annie Oz on Facebook?

00:31:05.960 Yes.

00:31:06.420 Oh, yeah.

00:31:06.760 Oh, good.

00:31:07.980 Oh, yeah.

00:31:08.200 Aren't they wonderful?

00:31:09.320 Oh, yeah.

00:31:11.020 Oh, yes.

00:31:12.100 They are Bigfoot true believers.

00:31:14.440 And they spend enough time on the land that we should listen.

00:31:19.760 We should.

00:31:20.400 We should.

00:31:20.780 And I love him.

00:31:22.160 And so he grew up just north of me.

00:31:24.880 He grew up near Boston Bar.

00:31:26.960 And so we got Facebook messaging, and that's how I became friends.

00:31:30.420 So I don't even know how I found him.

00:31:31.840 I think maybe he was even a mutual friend of yours.

00:31:33.700 I'm not sure.

00:31:34.200 I think he was.

00:31:34.600 But we had a bunch of mutual friends.

00:31:36.340 Huh.

00:31:36.640 Yep.

00:31:37.220 Interesting.

00:31:37.620 Well, I hope people listen to those folks, and I hope that they eventually get a picture.

00:31:42.360 But I hope that only we see it. 0.71

00:31:45.720 Because, again, I say, if the government sees it, we're screwed.

00:31:49.680 We're never going to be able to drill on the eastern slopes of the Rockies ever again.

00:31:53.340 They're going to protect it all from forestry. 1.00

00:31:55.020 Like, some stupid caribou that aren't smart enough to join the rest of the herd in the north. 0.99

00:32:00.200 They, all of a sudden, they're outlawing forestry in these areas because of the woodland caribou. 1.00

00:32:06.920 And I'm like, the woodland caribou are not a real species.

00:32:09.920 They are not genetically distinct from the rest of the caribou, which is, like, one of the most populous ruminants in the country.

00:32:17.200 But because there's, like, this little herd that's dwindling.

00:32:19.940 And I'm like, I don't care if those caribou are not getting it on.

00:32:23.600 That's not my problem.

00:32:25.400 They're lost.

00:32:28.860 Who cares, right?

00:32:30.320 But, no, we can't log there.

00:32:32.600 We can't do seismic there because of these, like, dwindling woodland caribou herds.

00:32:36.680 And I'm like, let me hunt them or put them in a truck and send them to the rest of the caribou.

00:32:41.980 They're not my problem.

00:32:44.560 And so I see that and I'm like, that's what, we can't find the Bigfoot because that's what they're going to do.

00:32:50.280 I never thought, honestly, until you mentioned it, I never thought of the implications.

00:32:56.580 That's not a good idea.

00:32:57.880 I was like, no, we can't find him.

00:32:59.320 He cannot be found.

00:33:00.400 He must never be found.

00:33:01.800 He must always remain elusive.

00:33:03.560 Only we must find his hair and his turds in the woods. 0.96

00:33:07.080 If we find any more than that, we're screwed. 0.93

00:33:11.500 You need to tell Annie this. 0.81

00:33:13.400 You need to tell.

00:33:14.600 Annie, keep it to yourself, Annette, please.

00:33:16.440 No, no, like, don't tell us.

00:33:18.040 Just DM us.

00:33:19.320 Just don't let the feds know.

00:33:21.020 Oh, my God.

00:33:21.400 You're wonderful.

00:33:21.900 Just, like, send me a wink and I'll know what that means.

00:33:26.540 Okay, next time you're down here in this territory, let me know.

00:33:29.520 And I'll do the same when I head back up.

00:33:31.680 Okay, sounds great.

00:33:33.040 Bye, dear.

00:33:40.780 Well, we've come to the portion of the show where we invite your viewer feedback.

00:33:44.180 It's the reason that I give you my email address right now.

00:33:47.120 It's Sheila at RebelNews.com.

00:33:49.000 If you have a question or comment about the show today, just put gun show letters in the

00:33:53.800 subject line.

00:33:54.520 And who knows?

00:33:54.940 I might just read your letter on air.

00:33:56.600 But also, don't hesitate to leave a comment wherever you might be watching us.

00:34:01.620 For example, if you've sat through a couple of ads and you're watching the free version

00:34:05.640 of the show on Rumble or YouTube, leave a comment there.

00:34:10.000 I might go poking over there to find, you know, something thoughtful or even maybe hate mail

00:34:16.800 sent my way.

00:34:18.960 And I've got a couple of them.

00:34:20.920 And it's on last week's show with my friend Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science.

00:34:26.180 And we were talking about the pause on green energy projects that our premier Daniel Smith

00:34:32.240 has put in place to deal with end of life issues of these projects.

00:34:38.780 How do you remediate them?

00:34:40.580 What are the reclamation plans in place?

00:34:43.300 You know, the same things we do for oil and gas.

00:34:46.960 And also, what are the implications that these green energy projects may have for our electricity

00:34:53.440 grid?

00:34:53.820 Are they going to cause brownouts and blackouts if we become oversaturated with these unreliable

00:35:00.980 projects that don't work when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing?

00:35:05.140 And Max Wellbeing 9449 writes, now, if the male leaders of the other provinces had balls

00:35:13.120 as big as hers, hers being Daniel Smith, our lovely female premier, the country might actually 0.82

00:35:19.820 start turning around for the better.

00:35:21.300 You know what?

00:35:21.920 I say it all the time.

00:35:23.220 Our premier, Daniel Smith, she has a bit of a DeSantis effect. 0.62

00:35:25.880 She is willing to go out and propose the policies and the ideas and take the slings and arrows 0.81

00:35:33.960 so that the others might follow in her footsteps.

00:35:36.480 The others being, you know, Scott Moe in Saskatchewan.

00:35:39.100 Although, to his credit, he leads the way on a lot of issues too.

00:35:42.320 Or at least marches together with premier Daniel Smith towards the fire of the mainstream media

00:35:48.240 and the feds, but her ideas also stoke, not cowardice, but rather fear in, for example,

00:35:57.720 the other territories, Yukon, Northwest territories, Manitoba sometimes falls in line with premier

00:36:03.400 Smith.

00:36:03.880 So there is some of that happening where she comes out first and sort of charges towards

00:36:12.460 the enemy line and then everybody sort of falls in line.

00:36:14.860 So, you know, hopefully her boldness will make this country a little more free.

00:36:20.580 Now I have a, I had somebody write in to ask why I'm always looking out of the corner of

00:36:29.680 my eye or looking down on a screen or seemingly somewhat distracted sometimes when I'm on air.

00:36:38.720 And there's a reason for that.

00:36:41.040 It is because I don't have a producer who is with me when I'm recording and I don't have

00:36:47.880 a video tech or a videographer who is with me when I'm recording.

00:36:53.020 So when I'm recording, I'm talking to you, the camera, I have a computer on my desk, which

00:36:58.540 controls my camera and my monitor and all that sort of stuff.

00:37:01.820 And I've got notes on another laptop sort of beside me.

00:37:05.480 And so the reason that sometimes you might see me not paying attention to my guest is

00:37:12.160 not that I'm not paying attention to my guest.

00:37:14.300 My guest is always in my ear.

00:37:16.660 I can hear everything they're saying, but they're deaf. 1.00

00:37:18.600 They're not in the room with me.

00:37:20.060 But I'm also making sure that I'm still recording, that I haven't had an internet catastrophe,

00:37:24.240 that my software hasn't failed, that my computer hasn't just turned itself off, that my guest's

00:37:29.120 quality is still at least usable as I work remotely.

00:37:32.880 So I'm not not paying attention to my guest.

00:37:36.000 I'm looking at my notes.

00:37:37.120 I'm monitoring with the recording process just to make sure that there's a functioning

00:37:43.000 show for you when you want it.

00:37:44.480 So it may seem like I'm distracted, that I'm not paying attention to my guest.

00:37:50.140 But really, I'm just trying to make sure that everything's working.

00:37:54.780 And unfortunately, I have to do it alone.

00:37:56.700 And sometimes that means taking my eyes off the camera to check as I'm doing right now,

00:38:02.360 things out of the corner of my eye.

00:38:03.700 So I hope that answers the questions and sort of maybe addresses those concerns that people

00:38:09.660 think that I'm, you know, just, I don't know, writing emails, sending text messages, doing

00:38:15.540 something else.

00:38:16.060 I'm not.

00:38:16.640 I am multitasking.

00:38:18.560 But that is the nature of what I do here because I don't work in the studio in Toronto.

00:38:24.640 I send them all these audio files and video files and they package it up to a show and

00:38:29.380 turn it into something that you can watch.

00:38:31.540 Well, everybody, that is the show for tonight.

00:38:33.620 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:38:35.200 I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.

00:38:38.340 Big shout out to everybody who works behind the scenes at Rebel News to turn this jumble

00:38:42.360 of audio and video files into a show that's watchable for you.

00:38:45.240 And as always, remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:39:15.240 Bye.

00:39:16.240 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - August 23, 2023

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Alberta's gas price advantage： Shouldn't other provinces follow suit？

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