Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ The Liberals' new plan： Skip the streaming tax and send the bill straight to you

00:00:00.000 Breaking news, the Liberals have cancelled their streaming tax, but you're still going to be paying

00:00:05.940 out of pocket to support Canadian content you don't want to watch. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed,

00:00:11.380 and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:00:30.000 Just before I started filming my show today, I got an email in my inbox and it was from the federal government announcing that they would be cancelling the CRTC's proposed tax on streaming services.

00:00:44.700 There was incredible pushback against the proposal of a tax on streaming services.

00:00:50.020 Streaming services are already expensive enough. Inflation is through the roof.

00:00:54.800 And of course, these streaming services would not just absorb this tax from the federal

00:01:00.360 government.

00:01:00.800 They would pass it along to the consumer in the form of increased rates for streaming

00:01:07.280 services.

00:01:09.060 So at first blush, it was good news, right?

00:01:11.700 Oh, maybe the government did the right thing.

00:01:14.080 You guys, the government never does the right thing.

00:01:17.720 And so in that same announcement about rolling back the streaming tax, or at least stop

00:01:24.120 the proposed streaming tax, the government announced $600 million in support to Canadian

00:01:30.220 content creators in the audio and audiovisual sectors. Of course, that doesn't mean us,

00:01:37.260 we wouldn't take it anyway. But it would appear that the government is just cutting out the

00:01:42.280 middleman instead of taxing the streaming services to give that money to Canadian content creators.

00:01:50.720 So, you know, you pay more for Netflix so that Netflix can give more money to the government and then the government just gives that money to, I don't know, Corblund.

00:02:04.420 The government is just cutting out the middleman and saying, OK, we're just going to take more money from the people and just give it directly to the likes of Corblund and other content creators.

00:02:14.800 I'm just using his name because I know he's a Canadian artist and he and I are in a political disagreement right now.

00:02:20.720 I don't know if he takes CanCon creator money.

00:02:24.400 So joining me now to break this all down is my friend Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:02:31.440 who had to delay our interview so that she could digest the information and get a press release out the door.

00:02:39.520 Take a listen.

00:02:40.060 so joining me now is good friend of the show my personal good friend and good friend to

00:02:51.860 taxpayers everywhere chris sims she's the alberta director of the canadian taxpayers federation

00:02:56.220 and chris as we're recording this wednesday morning lots of stuff is happening so let's

00:03:01.600 start with that you got the same email to your inbox that i did saying that the government is

00:03:08.940 pushing pause on its new streaming tax but that's not the whole story no is it yeah it's a big ball

00:03:16.740 of wax and it's messy so up until this morning the government the crtc was going to tell online

00:03:24.760 streaming services that have a non-canadian origin for example netflix disney plus all that sort of

00:03:31.640 stuff i think it would touch spotify too because spotify includes music videos on their app just

00:03:36.820 saying um so the crtc was saying we're going to take a 15 cut off of your canadian revenues

00:03:45.680 you companies um so that of course would either make all of us pay more for any of those streaming 0.95

00:03:52.480 services that we use to escape from this government stupidity in the evenings um or 0.97

00:03:58.800 it would have just made the company go you know what we don't need this headache yeah i don't want 0.99

00:04:04.660 to be dealing with some bureaucrat in Gatineau um bye-bye and it would have been similar to how

00:04:10.220 we can't have news on Facebook up to today now we've got heritage minister I can't remember the

00:04:16.740 entire length of his new title for his department so I'm not going to try the heritage minister

00:04:21.520 Mark Miller a Canadian identity and something or other and language something I don't know I

00:04:26.820 give up so I'm just going to be I'm going to be like Churchill and just call stuff by its old

00:04:31.120 names so canadian heritage um that minister the one that's in the wedding picture with former

00:04:37.780 prime minister justin trudeau that guy um he announced that they are going to tell the crtc

00:04:43.660 to review this this tax hike this 15 revenue that would be a win because in government talk

00:04:52.960 reviewing means slowly stopping. But no. In the same news release, they announced that they're

00:05:01.280 going to be pouring $600 million in taxpayers' money into Canadian audiovisual blah, blah, blah

00:05:09.560 media.

00:05:10.040 The review not capitulating to the U.S. Is that another concession to the U.S.?

00:05:14.820 It is another step to reinforce affordability for Canadians. This is not the time to raise

00:05:22.520 the cost for Canadians when the CRTC takes decisions as they did last summer with respect

00:05:28.680 to telecom and telecom sharing non-broadband which helped to lower costs for Canadians

00:05:33.760 we're very much in support but this is not the time to make Canadians pay another $50

00:05:38.760 more so I know and so I have asked the Department of Heritage if this is new spending like new

00:05:49.820 money that they're borrowing with interest or if this is some sort of you know redirection of cash

00:05:56.320 that already comes out of Canadian heritage which we already spend more than two billion dollars on

00:06:01.180 per year I don't know either way it sounds like taxpayers and or viewers are just going to get

00:06:07.320 screwed right they're either way they're going to extract money from somebody and that somebody I

00:06:16.720 think was always going to be us it just doesn't have the pass through now of Netflix or Spotify

00:06:23.180 or the other streaming services before they give it to the failing media outlets and

00:06:28.520 insufferable can con that yes you couldn't pay us to consume they've just taken the pass through

00:06:34.580 out or they've you know cut out one of the two pass throughs because it's always

00:06:39.360 you know from us to netflix over to the government and then over to the failing outlets now it's just

00:06:47.520 from us to the government to the failing outlets it sounds like they're just going to sink their

00:06:51.880 teeth into the other side of our neck oh okay is what this sounds like which is a bad thing

00:06:57.440 so yeah anyway we are in the middle of fighting this this this could have been so simple sheila

00:07:01.960 yeah all the minister had to say was no right there's your press we heard we heard from you

00:07:09.720 and we're not doing this in a time of inflation um you know when they all when the former finance

00:07:19.160 minister already admitted that streaming services can be a little bit too expensive in these trying

00:07:25.340 times when i canceled disney plus you know to fight inflation so they already understood that

00:07:33.200 these things are kind of expensive already their plan was to make it more expensive to help outlets

00:07:38.320 that nobody wants to support anyway yes i'm just like gonna say something radical here um people

00:07:46.500 should watch and listen to the stuff they want to watch and listen to well you extremist i know

00:07:55.320 I'm a complete extremist. I'm just like Carolyn Finley, like right up there, you know, former cabinet minister, you know, super extreme. So people should watch and listen to stuff they want to.

00:08:06.000 Yes. And then not be forced to pay for stuff they don't watch and listen to. So I'll put it this way. I watch Netflix. I need it, frankly, after working in this nonsense all day. I'll watch like old 90s shows because it feels like the before times. So I'll watch like ER or I'll watch like a work of art like The Crown.

00:08:29.060 um I don't tell my neighbors to pay for my Netflix subscription right I don't like that

00:08:36.100 would be so ghastly immoral and tacky could you imagine like hi I feel like watching this and I

00:08:43.020 support this form of art pay for it for me right that's outrageous so no this is absolute nonsense

00:08:48.760 Miller could have been a hero and come out and said you know what I saw the light um no Netflix

00:08:54.540 tax increase we're scrapping all of that and further the review part is going to be whittling

00:09:00.520 down the budget around here because we spend more than two billion dollars on the department of

00:09:05.320 heritage more than 1.4 billion dollars on the cbc more than 300 million dollars on the canada council

00:09:12.140 for the arts i'm just getting started that's not even touching the top of the iceberg that would

00:09:17.600 have been revolutionary of him saying you know what uh people should pay for their own stuff

00:09:22.080 yeah and and at the end of the day if you know to expand a program you might want to look at the

00:09:30.340 outcomes and the outcomes are as such that as we continue to support these failing outlets that

00:09:39.060 nobody wants to pay for there actually becomes fewer and fewer of these outlets in Canada

00:09:44.560 um there are the more we support journalists journalists the more we support them through

00:09:52.500 our tax dollars the fewer of them there are out there and um the fewer canadians trust anything

00:10:01.240 coming out of their mouths yes uh i've been in the game for a long time i've been in the industry

00:10:05.780 the business of journalism for a long time a full disclosure i did work for cbc for around six-ish

00:10:11.280 weeks right girls got to eat um and that was way back in like i can't remember 2011 2012 but i want

00:10:17.520 people to know that um and this is not an axe to grind they were fine it just wasn't a good fit for

00:10:22.940 me because uh i was told i have a type a personality and i seem to want to save the network all the

00:10:28.520 time um so anywho uh but this isn't a personal thing this is a common sense thing and a money

00:10:36.500 And people, if they aren't watching stuff, why should they be forced to pay for the stuff they're not watching? I'll give it to you this way. The CBC costs us $1.4 billion per year. The head of the RCMP union, National Police Federation, represents around 20,000 boys and girls in blue, just told their rank and file, don't accept an invitation for an interview.

00:11:06.500 if the CBC calls you. Why? Because they could be tricking them into coming to a fake TV studio for

00:11:14.660 a fake TV show in order to take their phones away and then verbally harangue them. Like,

00:11:20.140 I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, but that's what's happened. And gosh, Sheila, it's

00:11:25.200 just such a terrible situation right now with Canadian media. The first thing that they need

00:11:29.840 to do is pull the plug like yes stop funding it make it sort itself out but i'm i'm just a

00:11:37.500 miller could have done the good thing here and he just didn't it's like he tried to swing the

00:11:43.760 baseball bat and instead of like cracking it out past third base he's like hit himself in the knee

00:11:48.820 it's the dumbest move he should have just told the crtc no netflix taxi done yeah but no now now we

00:11:58.160 just are going to continue to pay more for their bad ideas and schemes. Yes. The one glimmer of 0.98

00:12:05.100 light is in the very garbled news release from the bureaucrats that I saw today is they use the

00:12:13.000 term consultation, consultation a lot. Now that word might be lame if you think about it, but it's

00:12:19.300 not in this case in government talk because that gives us windows to pummel them with entries and

00:12:26.340 emails and stuff. And the only reason Mark Miller is even talking about a Netflix tax is because

00:12:30.980 people who are watching this show freaked out, like flipped the table and said, no, we're not

00:12:36.380 paying a one cent more. So folks just keep up the pressure. They will eventually sober up on this.

00:12:42.740 The good news in that news release is that they're saying that they have to do public

00:12:46.900 consultation again. Yeah, they darn sure do. Yeah, it shows they're wobbly on these issues. 0.95

00:12:52.620 and it shows that people are figuring out that when you tax a company that provides a service

00:12:58.520 to you, they don't eat that tax. They pass it along to the consumer and people are figuring

00:13:04.740 that out. I want to talk to you about how Canada is the only country in the G7 in a recession.

00:13:16.180 And now, you know, you'll hear people in the mainstream media preface this by saying a

00:13:19.960 technical recession. But I, you know, I saw a really incredible exchange between opposition

00:13:26.760 leader Pierre Polyev and a journalist who said, you know, do you think it is Mark Carney's fault

00:13:32.660 or it must, it must certainly be Donald Trump's fault. And Polyev was right to point out, look,

00:13:38.900 we're all in the G7. We're all getting hit with tariffs. Mexico as well. And yet we're the only

00:13:45.900 one in a technical recession so what what could be the interesting different denominator there

00:13:51.760 perhaps it is mark carney and his spending habits yeah the group of 20 nations are all

00:13:59.300 faced with the same tariffs wars and energy prices yet 19 of the g20 countries are not in recession

00:14:09.300 One country is in recession.

00:14:14.100 Will the leader of the only G20 country in recession please stand up?

00:14:25.680 That is not a question, it's a request.

00:14:28.660 We'll go on to the next question.

00:14:29.940 and now we have the parliamentary press gallery running interference for a prime minister

00:14:41.960 um i saw that exchange i will point out uh it's funny that that exchange reminded me of someone

00:14:48.460 uh back a few years ago when the trudeau government put out a report that was recommending

00:14:55.580 a new huge tax on pickup trucks and suvs we had them dead to rights it was in black and white it

00:15:03.500 was a government report it was right there um the government we had it we had them we did a news

00:15:08.920 release you did video the whole bit saying hey the government is thinking or considering putting a

00:15:13.440 huge new tax on pickup trucks and suvs we've got it right here it's in a government report

00:15:18.140 The PMO, Prime Minister's office, whined, but it's just near the back somewhere. 0.97

00:15:25.180 Okay, that's one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. 0.75

00:15:29.260 Being towards the back of a book usually means it's kind of an important part, just saying. 0.92

00:15:35.820 Also, in government documents, if you want to know what's actually happening in the budget,

00:15:40.500 flip to the back, flip to the appendices, because that's where all the tables are and the money.

00:15:44.560 so hearing that from some you know 20 something staffer and the PMO saying well it's towards the

00:15:50.540 back so it doesn't count Olly Olly Oxenfree that was annoying and a little bit amusing because it

00:15:55.060 seemed so bush league but then I got a phone call from an employee within the parliamentary press

00:16:00.600 gallery not going to call them journalists anymore because they're on government payroll

00:16:04.640 I got a call from the parliamentary gallery's employee who literally on the phone with me said

00:16:11.540 well the recommendation is towards the back of the report though

00:16:15.520 like just talking point regurgitation from the PMO

00:16:20.660 straight up I can't believe this like I'm I I literally was in the foyer of the house of

00:16:27.720 commons when these same parliamentary press gallery reporters and they were reporters back

00:16:32.980 then they weren't funded by the government were chasing Bev Oda down the hallway cameras rolling

00:16:38.860 screaming at her about a $16 glass of orange juice. And now we have these press gallery 0.97

00:16:45.780 employees saying, well, it's just a technical recession. And isn't this really Trump's fault?

00:16:51.540 What? Right. No, a tech guys. Okay. In nerd speak, if you're looking at your data sheets,

00:17:01.320 a technical recession is just a term that like people with pocket protectors use when it's two

00:17:08.540 or three consecutive quarters of downturn okay it's still a recession right like no normal person

00:17:17.460 uses the term technical recession that's like saying you're a little bit pregnant I'm technically

00:17:21.920 pregnant yeah there already aren't we're either in a recession or not and unfortunately we're in a

00:17:29.540 recession and like the please like we have a line of defense or we should in journalists

00:17:37.980 they're supposed to speak truth to power they're supposed to afflict the comfortable and they're

00:17:45.000 not they're not they're turning around and you know yelling at pierre pauliev about trump when

00:17:50.580 it's carney's in charge so yeah it's it's a mess sheila it seems it seems like canadians are

00:17:57.080 laying the blame for their economic troubles with Mr. Trump, but you don't agree with that.

00:18:01.160 Well, maybe you are. Maybe you are protecting Mr. Carney from his economic record,

00:18:05.800 but here's the reality. Mr. Trump's policies are affecting all G7 countries, and none of them

00:18:16.200 are in recession. Mexico shares a border with the United States. Mexico is not in recession.

00:18:22.700 Only Canada, under Mark Carney's liberal policies, is in a recession.

00:18:28.540 France is not in a recession.

00:18:30.420 UK is not in a recession.

00:18:32.020 Germany is not in a recession.

00:18:33.940 Italy is not in a recession.

00:18:35.120 Japan is not in a recession.

00:18:37.620 Only Canada among G7 countries is in a recession.

00:18:41.800 And only Canada among North American countries is in a recession.

00:18:45.720 So it seems that the other countries, despite Mr. Trump's unfair tariffs,

00:18:50.420 have been able to craft policies to avoid recession it's only well and you touched on 0.71

00:18:56.960 bevota's 16 orange juice and that ruined her career now i thought kind of thought bevota was 1.00

00:19:03.360 a little bit cool like there's so many pictures of her just ripping darts at the house of commons 1.00

00:19:07.740 outside and i kind of thought she was a cool lady um but she looks like something from the

00:19:12.780 blues brothers i know oh just great like i've talked many times seems like a neat person like

00:19:18.360 it's not even personal but yeah right right but that was too much for conservatives to abide

00:19:23.960 but really like harper could have just done nothing about it but it was too much for general

00:19:30.320 conservatives to abide and yet we have the latest spending scandal on the onboard catering for

00:19:39.440 mark carney's uh i don't know junkets i i guess they're trade missions if you can call them that

00:19:47.280 But, I mean, through the same order paper responses where you guys uncovered some of the spending on the plane, I discovered that they were just sending a random plane there completely empty for a photo op.

00:20:01.180 What?

00:20:02.100 Yes.

00:20:03.060 Okay, I didn't know this.

00:20:04.120 I've been so busy this week, I didn't realize you got that.

00:20:06.800 Oh, my gosh.

00:20:08.420 And nobody seems to give it any air except for the CTF and regular people, and the media sort of dances around it.

00:20:15.500 this is gross um for people who don't know mark carney and his entourage um and we can't get the

00:20:23.960 unit numbers by the way like the number of coffee creamers and the number of like veal plates and

00:20:29.320 stuff um so mark carney and his entourage went to three different places london england of course

00:20:36.180 why on earth would he go to london ontario we're just in the middle of a terror why would he go

00:20:40.040 there um so he went to london england uh to brussels and to rome in the eu as the prime

00:20:47.480 minister of canada just saying um so he flew over there and he spent nearly nearly two hundred

00:20:54.280 thousand dollars on airplane food this is not including the cost of fuel or security or any

00:21:02.840 of that it is literally the catering cost for onboard service almost two hundred thousand

00:21:09.240 dollars and they ate veal and lamb and they drank bottles of wine that cost more than 65 bucks per

00:21:19.080 per bottle not like a box or a crate of them or something it is astonishing and there's stuff on

00:21:25.540 there that they were eating um that i actually can't pronounce like i'd need to look it up oh

00:21:31.000 my favorite part riddle me this Sheila what is Scottish salmon why did they pick do you know

00:21:39.640 what that is no I don't know because I eat canned salmon I'm normal throw in like a packet of chicken

00:21:48.780 noodle soup with some smashed up canned salmon some milk and some tuna mix it all together with

00:21:53.220 some celery seed you've got a really good seafood soup there and it's super cheap just saying a

00:21:58.020 little bit of tabasco sauce right there cost you like six bucks to make that pot anyway more

00:22:04.800 recipes later um scottish salmon the reason why i'm bringing this up is because last time i checked

00:22:10.680 um i'm from vancouver island in the west coast we got a lot of salmon on the west coast of canada

00:22:16.240 we also have atlantic salmon okay which is produced by farms and whatnot that is still

00:22:22.200 Canadian salmon. But during his three-city visit to the EU, they ate Scottish salmon.

00:22:31.500 Like, the reason why we're picking on this is twofold. One, we're in a massive debt. Massive.

00:22:38.340 Like, we're burning through more than a billion dollars a week just on interest costs, okay? So

00:22:43.400 we have un-money to pay for this nonsense. And two, it reeks of entitlement. Reeks of it. And 0.60

00:22:51.420 if they're not getting the little stuff right you better believe they're going to get the big stuff

00:22:55.640 wrong like it is such a problem so yeah unfortunately and this was the same guy

00:23:01.180 Carney said out loud with his face that he was going to do better and spend less

00:23:06.340 than former prime minister Justin Trudeau we did an apples to apples comparison to when he

00:23:11.960 when Trudeau went to Rome okay like two years ago like not long ago so same place same function of

00:23:19.300 an office carney spent more than twice what trudeau did on that trip for catering like

00:23:28.160 i can't explain any of this he just obviously doesn't care about wasting taxpayers money

00:23:33.520 and he ought to just to follow up to that um mr net zero yeah um for his egypt trip

00:23:40.940 um from ottawa to sharm el sheikh he chartered a private jet because he didn't want to wait for

00:23:48.460 the government jets to become available that charter alone was five hundred thousand dollars

00:23:52.920 he also billed taxpayers two hundred and thirty one thousand dollars for onboard wi-fi and then

00:23:59.340 another eleven hundred dollars because a pen broke on one of the charter seats say that last

00:24:04.900 eleven hundred dollars in cleaning costs because a pen broke on one of the charter flight seats

00:24:12.940 oh my goodness see guys and can i just say this is so disgusting it makes me so angry if i'd laugh

00:24:22.560 i have to laugh otherwise i'd cry um then we hear a rumble at what i can't remember if it was globe

00:24:28.140 and mail or some other of the mainstream government news agencies um came out and said oh well because

00:24:34.460 of the debt um we're gonna have to seriously look at not spending money on seniors like of course

00:24:40.960 that's the first thing they mention they don't mention not blowing two hundred thousand dollars

00:24:45.700 a pop on airplane food they don't mention a hundred thousand dollars to document the life

00:24:50.020 and times of a grocery cart they don't mention the fact that they're spending two point six

00:24:54.240 million dollars on bonuses on a crown corporation for a railroad that hasn't built an inch of track

00:25:01.600 yet like two point six million on people who work at alto work sorry are employed at alto

00:25:08.180 for literally an imagined train just in the boat and let's

00:25:13.940 our carny cabinet minister's wife is in charge over there i didn't actually know that part 1.00

00:25:22.460 see this is the thing his wife see next time you've got your sister-in-law your brother-in-law

00:25:29.700 or somebody who's saying oh well you know he's doing the best he can managing money he's not

00:25:33.960 he's literally not he's wasting money worse than Trudeau actually was wasting money I can't believe

00:25:40.000 I'm saying this but he is Carney is wasting money worse than Trudeau like they have got to get the

00:25:46.820 message through here that's why I just I really encourage people to keep pushing back I know it

00:25:51.600 seems bleak sometimes a you need to be happy and you need to keep hope alive because I think that's

00:25:56.980 our duty we got to keep fighting but be for the good of everyone we have to keep pushing back

00:26:02.200 And I do think that at the beginning of this conversation, Mark Miller blinking and saying, oh, CRTC needs to review. 1.00

00:26:09.720 That's a chink in the armor. 1.00

00:26:11.660 It's showing, like you said, that they're wobbly. 1.00

00:26:13.680 We must push them over on this.

00:26:16.000 Keep pushing, you guys.

00:26:17.320 Tell them to knock off this wasteful spending.

00:26:20.560 Yes.

00:26:21.940 If not for yourself, then for generations after us.

00:26:25.820 Chris, tell people how they can get involved in the CTF.

00:26:29.880 because not only do you fight back and do things that actually work, I mean, you were instrumental

00:26:37.060 in ending the consumer carbon tax, but there's a sense of fellowship over there.

00:26:42.980 There really is. So folks can go to our website, taxpayer.com, click on the petitions tab,

00:26:49.160 and there's something for everybody there. If you want to defund the CBC, stop government funded

00:26:54.380 media stop the gun grab I love your sign there on your desk anything like that stop the industrial

00:27:00.500 carbon tax there's even some niche like stop sales taxes on thrift shop items like quit taxing the

00:27:07.100 poor radical concept so click on the petition that speaks to you and then you're part of that group

00:27:14.320 and the next time we're fighting on those topics you're going to get our emails and our option

00:27:18.280 our action updates and it truly is we get so many emails from our supporters and we personally

00:27:24.120 respond to them every day um it does give you a sense of fellowship it's great um and i don't

00:27:29.860 feel alone anymore and you know agnes doesn't feel alone anymore and bob doesn't either like

00:27:34.680 we all talk and then we get together for like pancakes and beer sometimes so and we all kind

00:27:40.400 of we're all happy warriors so i just really encourage people who are listening to this

00:27:44.660 keep hope okay like we're fighting the good fight here we get wins all the time we fight stuff in

00:27:50.240 court, just like rebel does. Okay. We're in this real fight all the time together. And we do try

00:27:56.040 to make it joyful. So just know that you're not alone and keep it up. Chris, thanks so much for

00:28:01.540 jumping on the show today. I know I didn't give you a ton of notice and it was a very busy morning

00:28:04.920 for both of us. Sorry to keep you waiting. No, it's okay. I appreciate you taking the time.

00:28:10.300 I'll have you on very soon. And hopefully we can see our each other in person before then.

00:28:15.700 yes not technically yes not technically we're more than just technically friends

00:28:22.100 okay we're friends okay we'll see you very soon thank you

00:28:26.260 well as always the last segment of the show belongs to you our beloved viewer at home because

00:28:39.180 you know and i say this every week we'll never take a penny from the government to do the work

00:28:44.200 that we do to hold the government to account on behalf of the people it's political contamination

00:28:48.960 you would never trust us or at least fully trust us ever again you'd be worried about our sincerity

00:28:54.700 and at least you know that even if you disagree with my opinions they're my sincerely held ones

00:29:01.080 so i open up my inbox to you at sheila at rebelnews.com put gun show letters in the subject

00:29:08.940 line. So I know why you're emailing me. But also leave a comment wherever you find a free clip of

00:29:15.740 the show. And the reason for that is that your engagement with our work causes the algorithm to

00:29:22.380 show it to more people, which will bring more people to the other side of the story, which is

00:29:27.700 really what we all want. All right. So today's letter is actually from the email inbox. And it

00:29:33.420 comes to me from Stuart Jeans. And he writes to me on my show from last week with my friend Robbie

00:29:41.220 Picard from Oil Sand Strong and Oil and Gas World magazine on his work to bring advocacy to the town

00:29:49.040 of Blairmore, Alberta. Now, Blairmore has a proposed coal mine. And in fact, the town held

00:29:55.240 a local plebiscite on it where town residents, so the people actually affected by this, voted 75%

00:30:02.320 in favor of the coal mine project they want the jobs they want the

00:30:07.280 the economic activity they want the increased property value it's all a good thing for the

00:30:15.600 people of blair moore they want the tax base but people from outside of the region most notably to

00:30:23.260 country celebrities country music celebrities i guess at least locally core blunt and george

00:30:30.740 Canyon have come out against the coal mine. They don't live there, so they don't get a say.

00:30:37.120 And they are part of a referendum effort, a petition gathering effort. So they're right

00:30:43.740 now in the process of gathering signatures to trigger a referendum province-wide on something

00:30:50.340 that's already been decided in Blairmore. So Robbie did something that the people who are

00:30:58.880 against the coal mine haven't done. And that's actually go to Blairmore and talk to the people

00:31:02.920 about what they want. They want the coal mine. And so Stuart wrote to me on that show and he says,

00:31:12.740 Hi, Sheila, resource industry dependent towns should band together. I agree. And seek an

00:31:18.240 injunction against Corb Lund's petition similar to the injunction against the Alberta Prosperity

00:31:23.360 Projects petition. I guess it would be the Stay Free Alberta petition. In that case,

00:31:27.820 an injunction was granted in favor of the Athabasca Chippewan First Nation in the Blackfoot

00:31:32.520 Confederacy, highlighting concerns over the potential impact on treaty rights. As far as I

00:31:38.500 know, Lund's petitioners did not consult the communities where resource extraction occurs. No,

00:31:43.220 they have not. Actually, the local community, as I said, consulted with the residents and allowed a

00:31:51.840 plebiscite and the town voted for the coal mine. I would like to hear a judge pronounce that only

00:31:57.120 First Nations, not taxpayers, need to be consulted. Instead of concerns over treaty rights, an

00:32:01.300 injunction should be granted based on the potential impact on resource sector workers' ability to earn

00:32:06.700 a living. I agree. People have a right to earn a living and support their families, and they have

00:32:13.740 a right to have their decisions made locally. The closer the decision-making process is to you,

00:32:20.920 the more input and impact your input has on the decision making process that's one of the reasons

00:32:28.440 why Albertans many of us feel like the best path forward is secession from confederation because

00:32:37.640 we want to make decisions for us because we're affected by them rather than them be made in

00:32:45.240 Ottawa a thousand kilometers or three thousand kilometers rather I should say away from where

00:32:50.720 we are all right that's a great idea well everybody that's the show for today thank

00:32:55.560 you so much for tuning in I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place

00:32:59.000 next weekend as always don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think

00:33:15.240 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - June 04, 2026

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ The Liberals' new plan： Skip the streaming tax and send the bill straight to you

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