Rebel News Podcast - Trudeau, OPEC and coronavirus： Alberta under attack on three fronts

00:00:00.000 Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio only recording of my

00:00:04.640 weekly show, The Gunn Show. Tonight my guest is William Macbeth from Save Calgary. We're talking

00:00:12.080 about the economic devastation unfolding in Alberta because of the coronavirus pandemic,

00:00:20.020 five years of attacks, truly, from the federal government, the mismanagement of Rachel Notley,

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00:01:52.580 Alberta is being hammered by a three-fold assault on our economy. How is the business community ever

00:01:59.040 going to recover from this? I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:02:21.560 The coronavirus is just one part of a three-pronged attack on Alberta. The first,

00:02:27.720 of course, five years of Justin Trudeau in power in Ottawa with his anti-fossil fuel agenda,

00:02:33.540 his carbon tax and his out-of-control spending. And four of those years were enabled by former

00:02:38.820 NDP Premier Rachel Notley with her own carbon tax, her own anti-fossil fuel agenda and her own

00:02:44.640 out-of-control spending. The second is the predatory dumping of oil into the international

00:02:50.800 markets by the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia and their OPEC partners to drive down the cost of

00:02:56.700 North American oil. The result has been Alberta oil trading at a lower per barrel price than a

00:03:03.440 gallon of milk at the grocery store. It's a disaster. And the third, of course, is the coronavirus and the

00:03:09.660 subsequent social distancing measures meant to stop the spread of the infection that have in turn

00:03:15.760 resulted in a complete shutdown in major sectors of the Canadian economy. If you wanted to do away with

00:03:23.640 Alberta, this has been an absolute perfect storm. Joining me now from his cozy quarantine in Calgary

00:03:30.420 to talk about the impacts of these three catastrophes on the business community in Calgary,

00:03:35.560 but also the business community in Alberta and Canada in general, is my friend William Macbeth

00:03:41.560 from Save Calgary from Save Calgary, in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon.

00:04:00.340 So joining me now is my friend William Macbeth from Save Calgary, from his home in Calgary,

00:04:07.460 because that's the only place that we're allowed to be these days. William, first off, how are you

00:04:11.880 doing? How are you coping with the self-isolation? I've got a lot of people under my feet all the time

00:04:17.040 and that can sort of get to me. But I mean, to be, you know, a single person isolating in an apartment

00:04:26.660 or a condo, that's got to be tough. What are you doing to fill your days?

00:04:30.080 You know, it's interesting. I think like many people, you see how the grass is a little bit

00:04:36.460 greener on the other side of the fence without maybe understanding that with everything good,

00:04:40.560 there's also something bad. So I was thinking, oh, wouldn't it be nice to have another person

00:04:44.560 spending this time with? But then I think, except you'd be stuck with that person 24 hours a day,

00:04:50.660 seven days a week. So, you know, for all it can be a little bit lonely and quiet,

00:04:56.460 I do think there's some upsides because you can just be away from people if you're feeling annoyed.

00:05:01.840 Yeah, you and I were talking off camera about how, like, at least for myself, I hope this sort of

00:05:07.860 changes how Canadians live their lives. We are a big country. We are very sparsely populated and yet

00:05:16.560 city planners have this desire to sort of push us all into cities and then stack us on top of each

00:05:21.580 others in what are now sort of feeling like 400 square foot jail cells. Well, so much of our cities

00:05:30.780 are under self-isolation. I'm wondering, just, you know, not as like an opinion of Safe Calgary, but

00:05:39.420 as William, a person whose opinions I value and trust, do you think this might change the way

00:05:48.680 we plan our cities in that, you know, maybe people would be a lot happier with, you know, a 12 by 12

00:05:56.420 little plot of green space as opposed to just stacking everybody up high and not even having balconies

00:06:02.820 these days? I mean, I think you're right that there's been this prevailing conventional wisdom lately

00:06:09.720 that more people packed in per square kilometer of city is better. And people who still want to

00:06:17.760 purchase large homes with yards, front yards, backyards, are almost looked at as being these

00:06:24.900 villains. And they come at it from a few different angles that people owning their own single family

00:06:30.900 homes are raising the cost of city services for the whole city. They say from a climate change

00:06:37.500 perspective, it's irresponsible to consume the resources necessary to build and operate a large

00:06:44.720 property. But I do think what we're seeing now is the downside of densification. Because when you pack

00:06:51.520 people really closely together, and then tell them all they have to maintain social distance,

00:06:58.180 well, your options become a lot fewer. And we were talking a little bit about what's happening in New

00:07:03.500 York, which is one of the worst hit places in the world now for COVID-19. And I think it's because

00:07:11.560 everybody lives on top of each other. You know, there are tiny apartments with multiple people,

00:07:17.420 roommates living in them because they can't afford to pay the rent on their own. They don't have yards.

00:07:23.220 New York went, you know, to order to have enough people. They built large parks, large communal parks

00:07:28.360 that thousands or 10s of 1000s or even hundreds of 1000s of people use every day, except now they

00:07:34.520 really can't. And you're also seeing the downside being they can't self isolate as easily as people

00:07:40.120 here can because they don't own cars, they have to take public transit to go everywhere. There aren't

00:07:45.060 large supermarkets, they have to shop in very small, close grocery stores, where there isn't enough

00:07:52.940 space to maintain that two meters or in America six feet that you're being told to have to maintain.

00:07:59.080 So I really do think this is going to raise a lot of questions about how we plan cities,

00:08:02.660 how we plan supply chains, how we produce and consume the stuff that we need day in, day out.

00:08:09.500 Yeah, you know what, this virus is putting me firm, like I wasn't already, but I am on team urban

00:08:15.340 sprawl. Clearly, I think that might be the best way to live our lives and enjoy our lives

00:08:21.080 in a way that provides us some of that social space that prevents viruses and other contagions

00:08:29.320 from just tearing through the population like wildfire. Now, I wanted to have you on the show

00:08:33.580 because you are my Calgary business expert. And I wanted to talk to you about what's happening in

00:08:40.760 the business community in Calgary because of the COVID-19 outbreak, and then the subsequent actions of,

00:08:47.220 I guess, three levels of government and the effects that that has had on Calgary businesses.

00:08:54.580 The first thing I wanted to ask you about is the, it's from a couple weeks ago, but this Canadian

00:09:06.420 Federation of Independent Business, they do these surveys of businesses as, you know, with regard to

00:09:12.380 the carbon tax or, you know, whenever there's some sort of government tweaking of things that happen

00:09:16.900 to businesses. And they said that one third of businesses in Calgary fear that they will permanently

00:09:23.120 close within a month. And that survey was done two weeks ago. So I imagine if they did that survey now,

00:09:29.620 it would be probably more, I estimate probably closer to 50%.

00:09:34.140 They surveyed 10,000 small businesses when they did this. And according to Angus Reid in a separate

00:09:47.140 poll, they found that 44% of Canadians say they or someone in their household have lost work due to

00:09:53.160 the COVID-19 outbreak. Tell me, what does this all mean for Calgary businesses? I'm scared of the

00:10:00.860 snowball effect down the road, what this is going to mean for residential homeowners and ratepayers down

00:10:06.640 the road. But the immediate effects are in the business community. What are you hearing? What's

00:10:13.260 happening? Well, you know, I, I'm certain it's the same in, in Edmonton as it is in Calgary in many

00:10:21.560 ways. And I did read a survey from Edmonton that said one in two businesses expected to permanently close

00:10:28.200 their doors by the end of April. And if you think about that and the, and the scale of what that

00:10:34.600 means, small business in this country, and it's the same in Calgary is the, is the generator of

00:10:39.940 employment. Small business is what creates jobs. It's where people derive their income from their

00:10:46.380 salaries and where small business owners derive their income from as well. So if you were to lose

00:10:51.760 that many small businesses, the real question is, what is everybody going to be doing when this virus

00:10:57.120 finally passes or gets under control? How are we all going to earn a living? How are we all going

00:11:03.360 to pay our rents or our mortgages and make ends meet and pay our bills? So you've seen the federal

00:11:10.580 government introduce the federal wage subsidy programs going to pay up to 75% of the wages of

00:11:16.340 small businesses. But the biggest flaw in the program is how long it's going to take in order for

00:11:21.880 that program to get going. Because the finance minister, when he announced the criterion of it

00:11:26.540 last week, said it would be six weeks before cash would start to flow to small businesses. And I know

00:11:34.520 almost no small business that has enough money just sitting in a bank account to be able to pay

00:11:39.540 two months of wages on the expectation that then government money is going to come and help them.

00:11:44.880 So I think what you're going to see is a real business crisis here in Calgary. And of course,

00:11:49.660 we've been hard hit already. This has been a tough city for small business, high, high taxes,

00:11:55.820 decreased demand because of the situation in the energy sector, which got worse right on the eve of

00:12:02.760 the coronavirus when Saudi Arabia decided to cut oil production. So it's going to take some really

00:12:08.300 creative thinking, I think, in order to solve Calgary's business problems. And my big worry is that

00:12:15.140 this city council just isn't up to that creative thinking. Yeah, I mean, you and I were talking

00:12:21.320 yesterday that this is why cities need to have foresight. This is why cities need to, you know,

00:12:29.000 have contingency plans. It seems that Calgary never really plans for the rainy day and the rainy days have

00:12:38.280 been here for so long. Now, Calgary does have what is supposed to be a task force. We've seen a task

00:12:54.260 force in the United States. Donald Trump's convened his people. We've seen something similar here in

00:13:01.280 Alberta. Calgary is supposed to have a task force that's working on these sorts of things.

00:13:10.640 They've voted just recently to defer property tax assessments to the end of September without

00:13:18.240 penalty. Do you think that's enough? You know, and I defer to smarter people than me, but the same

00:13:26.660 problem about this program is the problem I'm having, say, with my own income tax, which is,

00:13:33.340 you know, the government said I don't have to pay my income tax for a few more months because they

00:13:38.340 know that times are tough. But the bill isn't going down. They're still going to assess me the same

00:13:43.540 amount of tax in three or four months' time. So why would I wait to pay my bill for three or four

00:13:50.260 months, especially because, like so many people, if there's money sitting in my bank account,

00:13:54.760 I kind of think it's mine, and I'll go do something with it, you know, irresponsible,

00:13:59.840 like buy groceries or pay my cell phone bill. And so then it won't be there for when I need to

00:14:05.320 actually pay the tax bill. And I think that's the problem for small businesses. Whether you charge

00:14:08.920 them at the end of May or at the end of September, if they're still paying tens of thousands of dollars

00:14:14.800 in property taxes that they don't have, well, the outcome is the same. They have to shut their

00:14:19.040 doors. They have to liquidate their business in order to pay their tax bill. So if that's the extent

00:14:23.660 of this task force's recommendations, well, that's nowhere near enough in order to solve this

00:14:29.820 problem. Well, and, you know, it's funny to listen to the city of Calgary complain because they're

00:14:35.240 losing $3 million in revenue because recreation facilities have closed. But the sort of the

00:14:42.720 pleas of small business owners are falling on deaf ears because these small business owners aren't

00:14:47.800 losing a statistical rounding error of their revenue. They're losing literally everything.

00:14:54.440 And your point is absolutely spot on. Especially, you know, it's been food service and hospitality who

00:15:01.820 were the first to close and the first to see this. And some have been able to retool to deal with

00:15:08.220 doing takeout orders. But I mean, a lot of them have seen like a 90% drop in their business if they

00:15:15.660 are able to stay open. Restaurants, it's such a small margin and they require, they rely on

00:15:23.160 constant liquidity. They are paying tomorrow's bills with today's cash. That's how fast the money comes

00:15:30.100 in and goes back out the door. Deferring their tax payment doesn't do much if they haven't been open

00:15:37.920 to earn the money to pay the tax bill. I think all three levels of government absolutely must provide

00:15:47.640 some level of tax relief for the business community, but not just for the business community,

00:15:52.360 for the self-employed and just normal people. Normal people. I mean, the fact that they've got to pay

00:15:56.940 their taxes while they are, you know, unemployed indefinitely. And who knows if the businesses are

00:16:03.500 going to remain to re-employ them? People need tax relief right now. However, that's not what they're

00:16:10.940 getting. They got an increase in the tax bill by 50%, at least on the carbon tax, April 1st.

00:16:17.860 No, you're completely right. And, you know, talking about the city, well, you're right. They have lost

00:16:23.920 $3 million in revenue, apparently, from those rec centers being closed. But there's a $4.1 billion budget,

00:16:32.740 which they just approved in final form yesterday. And they're not doing what everybody else is doing

00:16:39.600 in this tough time, which is reducing their costs. They are maintaining the same level of cost. And

00:16:45.980 we'll use the rec center, for example. Those rec centers must employ hundreds of people. Are those

00:16:53.460 people still being paid? And I think for the city of Calgary, the answer overwhelmingly is yes. They're

00:16:58.320 still paying all of their employees, even if those employees aren't particularly delivering any product or

00:17:04.600 service anymore to taxpayers. Now, I don't want to see anybody lose their job. I know how difficult it is for

00:17:12.520 someone to lose their job. But as a city, we have to ask ourselves, if we don't cut our costs, and as a result, end up

00:17:20.420 crushing our entire business sector, well, then the only employees we'll have left at the end of this

00:17:26.420 will be government employees. In fact, if you think about it, at the end of this, there will only be

00:17:31.380 the only people paying out money will be the government, either through salaries or through

00:17:37.020 social support. The fact that we're eroding wealth is, in my opinion, a problem as serious as the COVID-19

00:17:44.240 coronavirus. So to raise taxes 7.5% on homeowners who already have to pay all of the costs of

00:17:51.380 operating a house, of maintaining a family, of buying food, of paying off debt and bills and gas

00:17:57.700 for the car, which I admit now is cheaper because there's a price war over the price of oil. But still,

00:18:02.300 all of these things combined, simply hiking taxes is irresponsible. I think the city needed to show

00:18:08.020 leadership. And they needed to furlough staff and pay them part-time wages or pay them less wages,

00:18:15.660 but they didn't show that kind of leadership. Now, I wanted to touch on the carbon tax with you,

00:18:22.940 because you've been a conservative activist, probably for longer than me. And that's not a

00:18:29.840 comment on your age. That's just a comment on how you're an early adopter of good ideas.

00:18:34.320 Justin Trudeau, in the midst of this, while it seems as though he's finally acknowledging the

00:18:42.060 fact that truckers and farmers are the two industries you can always count on when, you

00:18:48.920 know, the chips are down, when nobody else can work, it is truckers and farmers who seem to be

00:18:53.480 keeping everything together, keeping people fed, keeping the supply chains open. And yet, in the midst of

00:18:59.640 this, these two, you know, for truckers, they're really risking contagion every time they do a

00:19:06.520 delivery that they are, you know, continuing to work and leaving their families to do these long

00:19:11.220 haul jobs to make sure that everybody can go to the grocery store and get what they need. 0.63

00:19:16.180 Trudeau hammers them with a 50% hike in the carbon tax in the middle of, I would suggest,

00:19:22.180 the worst economic crisis since the dirty 30s. No, it's a, it's a display of ideology trumping

00:19:30.820 sound policy in the extreme. And you'll see it from a few of their cabinet ministers. Now,

00:19:37.060 to their credit, people like Christopher Freeland, and for the most part, Bill Morneau have tried to

00:19:43.000 say all the right things when it comes to supporting all industries, all sectors, despite not delivering an

00:19:50.360 economic recovery plan for the energy sector, Bill Morneau promised one, so at least he paid lip

00:19:55.860 service to it. There are cabinet ministers out there who are using this viral pandemic as an

00:20:03.520 opportunity to push a decarbonized, no oil and gas agenda for Canada. And Catherine McKenna,

00:20:10.940 who is at the top of the list for those for whom, you know, the carbon tax and the whole climate change

00:20:17.880 is far more important than people being able to pay their bills and make ends meet. And she said

00:20:22.920 point blank, well, we're there should be no bailout plan. There should be no support for the energy

00:20:27.060 sector. We have to build a new economy where we don't consume natural resources and oil and gas

00:20:33.000 anymore. And I thought to myself, well, doesn't that just show the callousness of some of these

00:20:38.440 people who don't care about the fact that there are hundreds of thousands, millions of Canadians out

00:20:44.480 of work who are struggling to make ends meet so long as they can use it to advance their agenda

00:20:49.740 and at the expense of Canadians. It's unconscionable on the part of those people.

00:20:55.160 Yeah, they see this virus and the economic fallout surrounding the virus as an opportunity. It's,

00:21:02.740 you know, never let a crisis go to waste, I suppose. William, I know that you're spending a lot of time

00:21:10.480 time, uh, cooped up in your house. What is in your Netflix queue? And have you watched

00:21:17.500 Tiger King yet?

00:21:19.940 Well, I hear admission time. I have not yet watched Tiger King. I've sort of been saving it. I feel that

00:21:26.740 Tiger King is so good and so outrageous that it should be held for an emergency for when I really

00:21:33.600 have run out of things to watch on Netflix or one of the other streaming services I buy. And when I'm

00:21:39.000 really desperate for it, I'll break the glass and watch Tiger King. I've been watching, what have I

00:21:44.640 been watching? I don't know. I've watched, um, Star Trek Picard, which I enjoyed. I thought that was

00:21:49.920 good. And I'm rewatching Parks and Rec reruns because it's an example of a government, a local

00:21:56.900 government who, while maybe a bit taxed and spend for my liking, at least cares about the voters and

00:22:01.960 tries to do things that help them. So that's a nice change from our local government here. And, uh, I don't know

00:22:08.380 what I'm going to watch next week though. So, you know, Sheila, if you have any recommendations or

00:22:12.480 anybody who watches this has any recommendations, please send me a tweet and let me know.

00:22:17.660 I am watching Twin Peaks from the very beginning and to avoid a sedentary lifestyle, I allow myself

00:22:26.000 one episode of Twin Peaks. Um, and I'm only allowed to watch it on the treadmill. And so I, I'm,

00:22:33.460 I like 30 years later, I'm sort of enjoying the show through fresh eyes and I like how campy it is

00:22:40.100 and weird it is. And to see like the actors that are in it and what they went on to do is kind of

00:22:45.340 fun. But yeah, I, I'm, I'm slightly addicted to the show. So I'm only allowing myself an episode

00:22:52.160 if I watch it while on the treadmill and I don't get tangled up in my earbuds and fall off like I did

00:22:58.180 last night when the dog and cat got fighting in front of me. Um, William, uh, save Calgary.

00:23:05.780 You guys are still out there trying to ID, you know, the next conservative, um, competition to,

00:23:14.380 uh, Mayor Nenshi because democracy hasn't stopped as much as the liberals would like it to. Um,

00:23:21.040 how do people support the work that save Calgary is doing despite the pandemic? And I know it's,

00:23:27.180 you know, it's a tough time for everybody, but I think the work that saved Calgary is so important.

00:23:34.340 It's so important because supporting you with a little bit of money can save you a lot of money

00:23:39.360 on the backside. Like when you guys were key players in stopping those Olympics. Oh my God,

00:23:43.540 thank God you guys stopped the Olympics. Like I was just thinking about that now that's a bill that

00:23:48.620 nobody needed. Well, thank you so much. And you're right. As much as this virus and this pandemic are

00:23:54.300 consuming so much of our lives, government and politics always marches on. And we do have a

00:24:00.340 municipal election coming up in the not too distant future. In fact, uh, later today,

00:24:05.020 save Calgary or maybe tomorrow, save Calgary plans to put out another e-newsletter talking about

00:24:09.600 some of the ways the city can save money to cut taxes. Now I know they just voted to raise them,

00:24:15.460 but good news city council likes to flip flop. So hopefully if we can compress them,

00:24:19.700 compel them enough, they'll find ways to, to do that. So look for that. If they want to support

00:24:24.040 save Calgary, they can visit us on our website, savecalgary.com. They can sign up to our email

00:24:29.200 list. They can make us a donation securely online through our website, and they can follow us on our

00:24:34.520 social media on Facebook and Twitter, both at save Calgary. And we really hope that while people

00:24:40.600 are taking care of themselves and taking care of others and taking care of their family,

00:24:44.880 they also take care of their city. And that means not reelecting a group of people who did not plan

00:24:52.240 for this crisis and have no idea how to solve it. So we're going to be putting out our ideas and we

00:24:58.240 are going to be continuing our work despite the fact that we're all locked inside. That gives us a

00:25:03.180 little bit more time to do some research since we're all stuck in our dreams all day.

00:25:07.440 Oh, I love that the glass is half full. Um, William, thank you so much for coming on the show. Please

00:25:12.360 stay safe, stay healthy. And, uh, as always stay in touch. Well, thanks Sheila. It's great to talk to

00:25:18.460 you. I think there is a bit of a trend right now in the mainstream media and from within the bowels

00:25:31.160 of government. And so often those two messages seem to converge, um, to the point where they are

00:25:37.840 indistinguishable from each other, um, that people who are like myself, gravely concerned about the

00:25:44.100 economic fallout of the social distancing measures meant to deal with the coronavirus and the

00:25:49.340 authoritarian measures being taken by governments, both local, provincial, and national to enforce

00:25:57.320 certain behavior rules, um, to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, um, that those people are not

00:26:04.260 also sufficiently concerned about the health implications of the coronavirus outbreak. And

00:26:09.660 I think those things are not mutually exclusive. I think in fact, they are equally as important

00:26:15.660 as each other. And I refuse to let the government convince me otherwise. Last week, there were

00:26:23.540 the number said 2 million people in Canada who had filed for unemployment benefits. This week,

00:26:31.600 we heard the news that it's closer to 4 million people over the course of the last three weeks

00:26:37.200 who filed for unemployment benefits. Those are 4 million breadwinners in this country out of work.

00:26:43.260 And it is my concern that we might be creating a permanent welfare class in this country. If we don't

00:26:51.620 do something to preserve the businesses where those people work, if they don't have jobs to go back to,

00:26:58.100 what do we do with them? We can't have them on welfare forever, and we can't rob them of the

00:27:02.900 dignity of a job. Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:27:08.900 I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week. Please stay healthy,

00:27:13.940 stay safe, take care of yourselves and your loved ones, because you'll do it better than the government

00:27:19.280 ever will. And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:27:28.100 I'll see you again.

00:27:44.100 Bye-bye.

Rebel News Podcast - April 09, 2020

Trudeau, OPEC and coronavirus： Alberta under attack on three fronts

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