The Critical Compass Podcast - From Town Councillor, to Provincial Political Critic, to the Coutts Blockade w⧸Marco Van Huigenbos

00:00:00.000 One thing that I left with was this, the membership and this United Conservative Party supports the values that I hold dear in the form of policy and governance resolution.

00:00:17.280 I find there is a very serious disconnect between the membership and the membership pushed bear pit policy and governance resolution and the leadership style that this party currently have in the form of the UCP government.

00:00:47.280 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Critical Compass. Thanks for tuning in today.

00:00:56.120 We have Marco van Heugenbos, who has graciously decided to spend a little bit of time with us.

00:01:03.720 We don't really have a plan for the topics we're going to discuss today. We're going to let it kind of flow how it will.

00:01:09.760 Marco, for our subscribers, if some are unaware of you and what you represent and a little bit of your history, why don't you take the floor and give yourself a little introduction?

00:01:25.460 Yeah, well, I want to start off thanking you guys for having me on.

00:01:29.440 It's been a long time in the making and it's always great to do a first time.

00:01:36.200 Who knows if there's, we'll see if there's a second, but I always enjoy coming on with new thoughts and great discussions.

00:01:45.000 But for those who don't know me, I mean, I'd almost like to keep it that way because it seems to be that it's a small world.

00:01:51.440 But I grew up in southern Alberta, just outside the town of Fort McLeod, and the last 10 years have been pretty active for me.

00:02:05.780 I was a Fort McLeod town councillor, so I spent six, almost seven years in municipal politics.

00:02:12.980 Got involved in provincial politics right after the NDP formed government in 2015.

00:02:19.460 You know, the concerns that were quite prominent in the conservative world is something I shared and that got me engaged.

00:02:30.340 Stayed engaged into the early 2020 and the COVID years and got very involved as much as one could.

00:02:43.480 Pre, and I say this catalyst, but like a pre-protest, pre-freedom convoy, pre-border blockades.

00:02:56.240 That's where things changed for me in the last three years.

00:02:59.940 I played a prominent role in the COOTS border blockade, and that has landed me in significant legal battles.

00:03:11.700 Recently, earlier this year, I've been convicted of a fairly serious charge and faced sentencing.

00:03:22.460 So that's one aspect of my life the last few years, and a very intertwined aspect is my political advocacy, involvement, engagement.

00:03:35.740 That stems from being involved in Daniel Smith's leadership team in the South, with definitely a focus in the South,

00:03:46.700 to a very in-depth involvement in Take Back Alberta, its rise and its current standing.

00:03:57.220 And just involved in the USP in different parts of the province and different levels, with a focus on keeping government accountable to the people they represent.

00:04:15.220 So that's, to some degree, my buy on the last few years.

00:04:21.400 Right on, that's the opening paragraph of your Wikipedia.

00:04:28.040 You mentioned the UCPA GM just happened a little over a month ago.

00:04:37.620 What were your, I don't know if you watched the episode, but our last interview, we interviewed Marty, Marty up north, Marty Belanger.

00:04:46.820 I know you guys have, you know, points of agreement, points of disagreement.

00:04:51.400 What, we got his thoughts on the AGM.

00:04:54.080 What, you know, if you wanted to give a little 30,000 foot overview of what you thought of the AGM this year.

00:05:01.400 Yeah, so I think it's interesting that you say we have our points of agreement and disagreement.

00:05:06.940 We've been on shows together, we know each other quite well.

00:05:10.580 I actually seen him Saturday, and this is what he ended up saying,

00:05:13.180 because we were having a discussion about something that could have been contentious.

00:05:15.860 And he says, Marco, there's times where we're supposed to disagree, and we always vehemently agree.

00:05:24.520 So I haven't necessarily found anything that I disagree on, or we haven't found anything that we disagree on.

00:05:30.680 I mean, we are, depending on the issue, I mean, we haven't touched base on anything,

00:05:36.540 but we share a very similar thought process when it comes to government,

00:05:43.100 the role of government, and the current governments that we have.

00:05:48.440 So back to the AGM.

00:05:49.880 Having been to numerous AGMs, this was still definitely one set aside, you know,

00:06:02.740 set apart from the others for a number of reasons.

00:06:07.460 It's in Red Deer, which was something that everybody was like, okay, how is this going to go?

00:06:12.620 And I think they did a phenomenal job considering the amount of people.

00:06:16.220 So I'm not one to withhold credit where credit is due.

00:06:20.380 So I applaud the team that put that together for allowing and making sure the AGM went off without a hitch, without a problem.

00:06:31.500 But putting almost 6,000 people in a room, and I guess we should back up.

00:06:36.460 There were 6,100 and I think 19 registrations, but I believe there was almost 1,000 that never showed up.

00:06:46.460 And I could be wrong on that, but I haven't seen the final report yet.

00:06:50.620 But over 5,000 people in a room or in two rooms, that's a tremendous amount of people there for a similar subject,

00:07:00.740 not being provincial politics, and particularly conservative provincial politics.

00:07:11.560 I think the breakdown, I think there was some frustration with scheduling at certain points,

00:07:17.840 but even that all cleared itself out.

00:07:20.460 There was some controversial debate.

00:07:22.660 That's to be expected.

00:07:23.960 We're not going to agree.

00:07:25.100 We shouldn't always agree.

00:07:26.160 If we all agree, that's a serious problem.

00:07:30.460 But one thing that I left with, besides the networking, the discussions, the interactions,

00:07:40.280 you know, the social aspect of it, you know, there's a nightlife element, you name it.

00:07:44.580 There's a lot of that, right?

00:07:45.420 One thing that I left with was this, the membership and this United Conservative Party supports the values that I hold dear

00:07:59.980 in the form of policy and governance resolution.

00:08:04.120 I find there is a very serious disconnect between the membership and the membership pushed bear pit policy and governance resolution

00:08:15.400 and the leadership style that this party currently have in the form of the UCP government.

00:08:21.420 We, almost unanimously, 90% support for fairly controversial, if we're talking mainstream, policies and resolutions in today's day and age.

00:08:36.920 And I should say mainstream would deem them controversial.

00:08:39.980 I think that more than 50% of Albertans would agree with the approach that the party is taking and that this government,

00:08:46.780 that the membership of this party is taking, not the government necessarily, but that the membership of this party is taking,

00:08:53.480 but it's failing to transition and translate into actual government, into, you know, bills or legislation making its way to the floor of the legislature.

00:09:08.080 We see a leader that is following a few of the principles, the founding principles of the party, which you can find on the UCP website.

00:09:21.140 We see a style of government that contradicts the founding principles of the UCP party,

00:09:28.080 that contradicts the membership, the desire of the membership.

00:09:32.780 But then we have a, once, we have a very special aspect of this AGM, which was the leadership review.

00:09:44.420 And people who voted in favor of policies and resolution in great, in a phenomenal majority on most everything,

00:09:55.980 to then give a, to then give a, even bigger majority to a, the representative of a government that has, in my mind, failed,

00:10:06.580 not, not, not every, on everything, but that has failed significantly to implement said policy driven governance or, sorry,

00:10:20.820 said policy and governance driven by the membership or,

00:10:25.980 follow the principles, the founding principles of the party.

00:10:30.240 So, confused to some degree, not, not confused as to what's happening, because I understand why people did what they did.

00:10:38.360 But one part of me felt like this is, this is great.

00:10:43.060 This is, I'm, I'm, I'm with my people.

00:10:45.660 These, these are my people.

00:10:46.820 I'm not mine.

00:10:47.640 I mean, I'm one of them.

00:10:48.480 They're, they're, we're all part of this.

00:10:50.000 Not one.

00:10:50.860 We all have a vote.

00:10:51.660 We're all members.

00:10:52.140 But to then see that 91 and a half percent, um, confused me.

00:10:59.480 It was like, where are we, how are we giving the leader of this party, the premier of this province,

00:11:08.620 such a, such an approval when, um, there's such a disconnect between what we want and what they're doing.

00:11:16.460 So, that's a bigger discussion.

00:11:20.100 And that was my thoughts that evening, the next day into the next week.

00:11:25.220 I've now come to a bit, bit more of a understanding as to what people were looking to achieve with that.

00:11:32.480 And the fact that it is a no or a yes, there's no, you know, there it's, it's, it's not, it's a very hard.

00:11:39.920 There's no nuance there, really.

00:11:42.160 There, there, there's no nuance there.

00:11:43.460 And there's no third option as to a more in-depth evaluation of, of said leadership.

00:11:49.360 So, it, um, it, it was very confusing for a lot of people.

00:11:53.100 And I think, uh, I think I even had this, this conversation with Marty.

00:11:56.520 Uh, I can't remember where, but he, he shared those thoughts.

00:11:58.960 It was just like, this is my people.

00:12:00.700 And then they do this, but it doesn't translate.

00:12:03.360 So those are just some, um, some thoughts I had as to that weekend.

00:12:08.240 So I'm, I'm wondering what would that 91% look like if you had maybe on five different

00:12:16.260 dimensions, you had like a floating point scale or a Leichhardt scale of like, if you're

00:12:23.180 actually doing a leadership review and you're like, well, on policy, do you agree, strongly

00:12:28.680 agree versus disagree.

00:12:30.180 And then you go through like, well, on implementation on these multiple, if you're treating it more

00:12:37.180 than just a yes or no, I think we would find out a little bit more than this.

00:12:41.740 I think the yes and no almost speaks to, I wonder how many people just said yes, because

00:12:47.920 they're like, well, what's the other option right now?

00:12:52.140 Who else would replace her?

00:12:53.980 Would we get any better with the existing bureaucracy?

00:12:58.040 Um, there, there's all these kinds of floating questions of like the no is kind of, uh, a tricky

00:13:03.920 place to, to be in when the unknown is, is, well, you, you don't know what else can or

00:13:12.200 would happen given this current framework.

00:13:15.940 Well, I couldn't agree more.

00:13:17.980 I think the two are actually tied together.

00:13:20.200 I think that the one in some sense was before the other, even though they're, um, like, I

00:13:27.260 mean, before we had our board elections and, and the, the results of the leadership review,

00:13:32.960 uh, announced the bear pit was concluded.

00:13:36.980 So we have a membership who is attempting to send a very clear message with, um, with, with

00:13:44.820 the policy and how they support it and, and, and the absolute, um, you know, almost unanimous

00:13:51.700 support for some of this to then, you know, to then end it with a resounding yes, as a

00:14:01.700 method of premier, this is what we want you to do.

00:14:05.740 I mean, I know, like you just mentioned, I know is there has to be a plan as to if a

00:14:12.260 no, if a no is successful and there wasn't, there was no plan, but, um, it's still, I think

00:14:19.840 there was a significant percentage of people who, who abstained, who just didn't vote.

00:14:24.540 They couldn't one way or the other.

00:14:27.600 Um, but I think the yes was a, a message in and of itself to premier, please, you know,

00:14:38.320 continue to govern or please govern according to the message that the membership is bringing

00:14:44.600 forward in, in numbers that are history making, right?

00:14:50.000 Like the attendance levels are, well, they, they made history and, and maybe next year

00:14:55.920 they'll make history again.

00:14:56.980 I mean, people are, there's, there's a hope and a desire that their involvement and their

00:15:02.660 engagement and they're, they're stepping away from the apathetic nature of the past, which

00:15:07.880 I mean, I think COVID just wake, woke people up what government did to, to the population.

00:15:13.900 It got people involved.

00:15:16.420 Um, I wish, I wish there was 30,000 people.

00:15:20.200 I mean, it's impossible to, to maybe it's not impossible, but I think there should be

00:15:25.160 more involvement and engagement, but the people that have gotten engaged are there with hope

00:15:32.140 to implement change and to send a message.

00:15:34.700 And I believe even the message of support was in people's minds, a clear mandate, a mandate

00:15:41.980 that they hadn't received in the past, you know, the sixth ballot, sorry, the fifth ballot

00:15:47.380 leadership win.

00:15:49.240 That's not a mandate, right?

00:15:50.840 That's a, we barely squeaked it out.

00:15:53.540 Um, the, the election itself last year wasn't, I mean, I don't think it was as strong of a

00:15:59.140 mandate as, as some like to say it was.

00:16:01.180 I think we, you know, it was the NDPs to lose and they did that or sorry, it was theirs

00:16:05.340 to win, but they lost it, right?

00:16:08.260 They, they brought forward this small business tax increase, which I think lost Calgary.

00:16:13.120 They would have won if it wasn't for that stupid announcement.

00:16:16.340 Um, I'm thankful that they lost, but I think it was theirs to win and they lost it.

00:16:22.360 So to say that we won, I find that a bit rich.

00:16:27.120 I think we, we benefited off of a serious error that team NDP had, had made during the, um,

00:16:37.040 pre-written the writ, but that, that win didn't translate to a very strong message of support

00:16:44.940 from Albertan.

00:16:45.560 So I think people came out to, to, to let Premier Smith know we like certain things of what

00:16:50.660 you're doing, please accelerate them.

00:16:53.060 Please double down on them.

00:16:54.340 Please do what we're asking you to do.

00:16:56.540 Please deliver on the campaign promises you've made, um, in your leadership, in the general,

00:17:02.520 you know, tax break, you name it.

00:17:04.360 There's, there's all these different promises that this premier has made.

00:17:08.020 So that's the way I interpret this, this yes, because it completely conflicts with the policy

00:17:19.880 and governance that the membership has pushed forward.

00:17:23.200 And that largely gets ignored over the course of a legislative sitting.

00:17:29.080 So that, um, you, you, you touched on it, uh, a little bit in your answer there.

00:17:34.220 Uh, we asked Marty this as well.

00:17:35.860 Um, if you had to make a prediction, um, given the, the, the outward, you know, strength of a,

00:17:44.840 of what a 91 and a half percent approval rating represents, would you predict that, um, that

00:17:52.060 Daniel Smith and her team would see that and, and interpret that as a message of keep doing

00:17:59.700 what you're doing, you know, maybe kind of float around the middle, try to not, you know,

00:18:03.960 piss too many people off.

00:18:05.780 Or do you believe that she'll interpret that as a, as sort of like what you were saying at

00:18:10.560 the end is kind of the go ahead to, you know, get a little bit more on track with, um, kind

00:18:15.580 of the, the, the tone of the rhetoric, at least going into last election was, which maybe

00:18:20.720 is a little stronger, came off a little stronger anyway, than she has seemingly governed so far.

00:18:27.380 Well, I think we can already see that in the last five weeks as to how they concluded their

00:18:31.620 legislative sitting and the steps they've taken in particular, um, the bill of rights, it speaks

00:18:38.640 to a mindset that we've survived this obstacle as a leader, you know, as a government, as

00:18:46.020 a head of government, as a premier's office, um, the next accountability session is to be

00:18:53.980 had with all Albertans.

00:18:55.500 And that is a time when conservatives have to put aside their grievances and, and, uh,

00:19:01.820 and support, you know, the UCP because the alternative is the NDP based on, you know,

00:19:09.140 the generals, the, the, the general mindset, there's no, it's not a party affair anymore.

00:19:15.060 It's now the general election.

00:19:16.380 And of course we don't support the NDP.

00:19:18.600 So regardless of who my represent, who my candidate is, who my MLA is, it's like, you know,

00:19:25.540 you're going to hold your nose and vote.

00:19:26.760 Right.

00:19:27.980 Cause that's just what we do.

00:19:29.400 So I see this as a huge obstacle that they, they overcame with flying colors.

00:19:37.060 What I suspect and what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing, um, this is not all necessarily

00:19:43.040 public, but is a, a premier's office that is going to put it into second gear or, or,

00:19:52.000 or third gear in relation to the, the, the style of government, they, the governance they

00:19:59.780 were, they had, you know, the, the, the, the type of governance they had entertained

00:20:04.580 for the last two years.

00:20:06.420 Um, I see very little of what membership has to say being taken seriously.

00:20:17.380 Like, I mean, they're, they're, they're going to take it serious.

00:20:21.160 They're not going to disrespect the membership.

00:20:22.540 They're going to say all the right things.

00:20:25.060 They're going to encourage people to become engaged, to remain engaged.

00:20:29.360 But when it actually comes down to the nuts and bolts of a particular bill that gets tabled,

00:20:35.920 uh, first reading, second reading committee, and then third reading to Royals.

00:20:41.100 And it doesn't, it doesn't equate to what they're saying.

00:20:46.220 For example, I've seen some of Mickey Amory statements and it's like, well, this is great.

00:20:51.780 Like some of his public statements, this is some of his, some of his interviews with,

00:20:56.100 with media, this, this looks good.

00:20:58.180 We're property rights, you know, gun rights, all of this stuff.

00:21:02.000 But when you actually look at the legislation and you have the ability to interpret the bill

00:21:06.960 and the changes, it's just disgusting.

00:21:10.760 It's, it's not in any way something that benefits us.

00:21:14.360 If anything, it has the opportunity to solidify, um, a repeat in a different scenario of, of,

00:21:22.940 of what we've gone through in the last couple of years without government actually, um, behaving

00:21:28.940 in a, in a, in a, in a legal manner.

00:21:30.580 They now have, you know, they, they have the ability to, well, we've seen that already.

00:21:35.980 We've seen that in another instance here, we, we had, um, Preston Manning's report.

00:21:42.620 One of the recommendations was that, well, there was 90 recommendations actually, but one

00:21:49.600 of the only recommendations that they implemented was to take the authority away from the chief,

00:21:55.600 um, the chief medical officer of health and give it to cabinet.

00:22:02.740 Now, Jason, cause that's where the Ingram decision stems from, right?

00:22:07.480 The Ingram decision and the ruling that deemed Jason Kenney's health measures and emergency

00:22:13.620 measures illegal is because the ultimate authority and the, and the say, the final say was actually

00:22:18.920 up to Dina Hinshaw, our chief medical officer of health.

00:22:21.120 So we had the political class making the decisions.

00:22:25.840 And one of the first things they did that, and one of the only things that they did stemming

00:22:29.980 out of Preston Manning's report was to give that power, um, to the, the politicians.

00:22:37.540 Now, I'm not saying that I'm opposed to that.

00:22:40.340 That's not, that's not what I'm saying, but I, I only see government making the changes

00:22:46.080 to solidify their position.

00:22:47.640 And if anything, give them the legal means to, you know, that, that if they ever run into

00:22:55.120 a situation that is similar to something we just went through, um, they now have every

00:23:01.260 right and the full jurisdiction to, I mean, put health mandates, put a, you know, put emergency

00:23:09.660 measures in place, even though the promises will never lock down again, or we'll never

00:23:16.920 have a vaccine mandate.

00:23:18.960 Those promises mean nothing to me.

00:23:20.920 That that's the promises of a particular politician.

00:23:24.100 And I'm not, this is not me beating on Daniel Smith.

00:23:26.540 This is, we've seen this through the, through the ages that what a politician says means

00:23:31.000 very little, it just every week, every month, every year promises get broken in, in politics,

00:23:38.660 provincially, municipally, federally.

00:23:40.880 To me, what matters is the strength of, um, the courts and, and, and what mandates the courts,

00:23:48.620 the strength of, for example, a bill of rights, the strength of our laws, that, that, that's

00:23:54.020 something that regardless of what a politician says, that, that keeps them accountable, that

00:23:59.200 holds them accountable because Jason Kenney also said, we're not going to have a vaccine

00:24:05.860 mandate.

00:24:07.080 And he, he, he said that knowing he was lying because there was no way they could roll out

00:24:12.720 the, the, uh, RFP program.

00:24:15.500 No, not the RFP program.

00:24:17.720 What's it called?

00:24:18.640 The, uh, RAP.

00:24:20.640 I can't remember what it was called.

00:24:22.200 Our provincial vaccine mandate that we had here.

00:24:24.340 It had an acronym, but two months later, he announced that we were rolling it out.

00:24:28.920 Well, it would have been in the works.

00:24:30.840 So while he's at the Calgary Stampede, you know, best summer ever open, open for summer,

00:24:35.760 open for good saying, we're never going to have a vaccine mandate.

00:24:38.460 He knew that there was people working on, on, on a program that Alberta was going to implement

00:24:48.640 via, via, via emergency management COVID committee, right?

00:24:52.220 So I guess people want to put faith in politicians.

00:24:57.360 People want to put their hope in politicians, their trust in politicians, but I would advise

00:25:01.560 people not to do that.

00:25:02.400 I would, I would sooner utilize them to, to put forward legislation, to, to put it in,

00:25:10.000 you know, not stone necessarily, but on paper that these are our rights and government doesn't

00:25:17.700 even have, doesn't have the ability to, to give them to us or to take them away.

00:25:20.960 Right.

00:25:21.400 That's the, that's been the whole, that's been the interesting part of this whole thing

00:25:24.000 is that government's telling us what our rights are is like this, that part was just,

00:25:31.260 it wasn't lost on me.

00:25:32.160 Government is telling us what our rights are.

00:25:33.940 And now we're going to be surprised when government tells us that they're going to take

00:25:37.460 those rights away.

00:25:38.100 Like who is government and what role do they play to tell us what our rights are?

00:25:44.060 We have these rights, right?

00:25:45.920 And government has been, you know, consistently infringing on said rights, family, privacy,

00:25:55.800 you know, um, there's, there's, there's hundreds of categories of, of rights that people have

00:26:02.160 had through the ages that are now in question or taken away or what we see federally, right?

00:26:07.920 Just, just the gun right.

00:26:10.600 Okay.

00:26:10.920 We have a right to, well, we don't, it's not a right, but we have, there are rules that

00:26:17.180 people have to follow and then they have the right to own guns, but which guns is now a

00:26:22.480 big question, right?

00:26:23.540 324 guns are taken or models have been taken off, off the market.

00:26:27.280 I mean, it's just, well, they're assault style though.

00:26:31.820 So, so, so it's good.

00:26:33.960 They're scary.

00:26:35.120 They're 22 caliber guns, right?

00:26:37.280 I know they're assault style.

00:26:38.580 So, you know, I, I'm, I feel a little better that Bill Blair thinks the Ukrainians are going

00:26:44.200 to have the ability to defend themselves.

00:26:46.800 The only thing they're going to be defending, defending themselves is a rodent infestation.

00:26:50.840 That's essentially it.

00:26:52.060 Like, it's just ridiculous, right?

00:26:53.520 But because they look scary, it's a threat.

00:26:56.300 It's just, it's just, it does that count as a reasonable limitation when these things

00:27:03.000 get interpreted?

00:27:04.220 That's the, that's the big question is like, when we have these bills, uh, when this legislation

00:27:11.120 goes in, is it robust enough to survive a change of government?

00:27:15.820 Or if the courts have a certain bias, is it robust enough to still do what it's legislated

00:27:24.180 to do even with bias in the courts?

00:27:29.200 And bias in the courts or the fact that legislation is a double-edged sword always is, always has

00:27:35.420 been, right?

00:27:36.100 Like you said, a change in government, bill 20, for example, earlier this year, classic

00:27:41.260 example, as, as somebody who understands that, who has been in municipal politics.

00:27:46.040 Yes.

00:27:46.300 I understand that municipalities are, are legislated, uh, by the province through the municipal

00:27:52.020 government act.

00:27:52.780 Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:27:55.040 But what, what I've seen this legislation used for, and, and only exclusively been used

00:28:02.940 for is to keep, is to kind of rein in the Chestermere Town Council and make sure that there's some

00:28:08.380 of these town councils that are challenging this government or the MGA or the, like the

00:28:15.160 minister of municipal affairs in his office, Rick McIver, to give Edmonton the tools to deal

00:28:22.540 with that.

00:28:24.320 That's not what bill 20 was about.

00:28:25.920 Bill 20 was about, well, I mean, the reasons they said it was about, it was to, to give

00:28:32.360 province the ability to challenge and change, you know, um, land use bylaws that were against

00:28:40.900 the best, against the interests of said municipality or to recall municipal servants or, you know,

00:28:48.900 all of this stuff.

00:28:49.720 For example, I, I shared something today I seen from an Edmonton counselor.

00:28:53.440 I mean, you might've seen it on Twitter.

00:28:55.340 Uh, he had said something about picking public transit, you know, bad weather, uh, convenience,

00:29:02.120 all of this stuff.

00:29:03.840 So something about, you know, I'll, I'll read it off because it's just, it's just like six

00:29:10.820 months or a year or two years ago, this was like the stuff conspiracy theories were made

00:29:15.240 of, or that's what they said.

00:29:16.820 And here we now have representatives of major Canadian cities.

00:29:25.520 Well, they're, they're adopting a lot of the shared language.

00:29:29.220 Yeah.

00:29:29.440 If that's a tweet that we're talking, it's become their talking points.

00:29:32.320 Yeah.

00:29:32.560 So, uh, Michael Jantz, he's a city council counselor.

00:29:37.160 Travel safe today in the snowfall, Edmonton.

00:29:39.800 Try to take transit and reduce congestion.

00:29:43.660 Pure cars mean less traffic.

00:29:45.260 A 15 minute city would help prevent you from needing to leave your district, your district.

00:29:51.920 Like, can you believe this shit?

00:29:55.480 This two years ago, all three of us would have been like booed off of a stage somewhere

00:30:02.340 because laughed off.

00:30:03.700 Yeah.

00:30:04.180 Laughed off.

00:30:04.920 15 minute cities.

00:30:06.080 Yeah.

00:30:06.320 With your new world order.

00:30:07.900 Right.

00:30:08.840 And I'm not one, like I understand convenience.

00:30:11.560 I understand all of that, but that's not what this is.

00:30:15.260 This is the first step to restricting you to your district.

00:30:21.120 Like, dude, this guy, he's gone a little too far down the hunger game.

00:30:24.640 It also raises, it raises a question.

00:30:27.220 Well, I think people, a lot of people forget what does a municipality, like what, what is

00:30:34.260 their key role?

00:30:36.140 What are they supposed to do?

00:30:37.660 And does that involve electric buses and saving the climate and, or like, why is there all

00:30:45.880 this extra ideology attached when you aren't even fulfilling your base level services?

00:30:53.100 Exactly.

00:30:54.040 Calgary's water is completely, it's been a mess for many years.

00:30:58.220 Because it's not new.

00:31:00.020 It's not a surprise.

00:31:02.420 Yet they've had this leaking pipe and they're like, oh, it finally got to be a problem.

00:31:07.880 They had to, like, it finally got to a point where it couldn't be ignored, but they were

00:31:12.860 ignoring it while putting all this other money into fluff.

00:31:17.600 That doesn't really matter.

00:31:20.320 You know, like, fluff.

00:31:22.460 I mean, there's so much waste.

00:31:25.120 We say, like, Rick Bell likes to write about it, right?

00:31:28.040 Waste at City Hall.

00:31:29.160 I mean, I don't always agree with Rick Bell, but when it comes to the City of Calgary, I

00:31:34.420 wholeheartedly agree.

00:31:35.960 And that's a problem in a lot of municipalities.

00:31:38.520 That's a problem in my own municipality, too.

00:31:41.840 And there's no incentive to do better because taxation is real.

00:31:47.960 And if you don't pay your taxes, if you don't pay your property taxes, after year two, year

00:31:53.460 three, they can take you to court and, I mean, take away your property.

00:32:00.260 And, I mean, there's got to be a consequence.

00:32:02.920 Like, you've got to pay your taxes.

00:32:04.140 But it's become criminal in nature as to how governments have been able to tax people

00:32:12.160 and at what levels while failing to deliver the basic level of service, right?

00:32:19.860 And it depends on what part of the city you're in.

00:32:23.400 There's a lot of factors.

00:32:24.600 But there is significant waste in municipal government, like tremendous amounts of waste,

00:32:30.380 whether it's through the RFP program for projects where they don't necessarily pick the cheapest.

00:32:37.040 I mean, even the method, how they go about awarding these projects.

00:32:42.580 Because the community sets a budget as to this is what we're looking to spend

00:32:48.540 because the engineers have already submitted a cost analysis for said project.

00:32:56.300 You're going to, like, I mean, most contractors, no matter how many,

00:32:59.960 they're all going to be within that range.

00:33:02.500 And that range allows for a 13% for the engineers.

00:33:06.140 It allows for a lot of things.

00:33:07.720 So there's no real cost benefit or savings for the community

00:33:15.600 because we're telling contractors where they need to be and what this project,

00:33:23.560 the engineers are saying this is what the project should cost.

00:33:25.980 And now we're just going to find somebody who's going to, you know,

00:33:30.800 who if they're in that ballpark, they get awarded the project.

00:33:34.580 If they pass, you know, certification, qualification, you know,

00:33:38.700 you have to qualify before you can, you know, participate in an RFP process.

00:33:48.520 But there's no, okay, this is something that should cost $100,000,

00:33:53.160 but the engineers made it $400,000.

00:33:54.920 It's going to cost $375,000.

00:33:57.420 And that'll be the cheapest guy.

00:33:58.480 The next one's going to be $475,000.

00:34:00.660 And there's times where the $475,000 company gets the job

00:34:04.160 for reasons that are never disclosed to the public.

00:34:07.260 But you know what?

00:34:08.460 They get paid for by the taxpayer, by the public purse.

00:34:11.040 So there's no, and that money keeps on rolling in

00:34:12.960 and they can debenture it and they can,

00:34:14.920 it's just no business would operate this way.

00:34:17.440 I mean, no business.

00:34:19.560 Never, ever.

00:34:20.380 So you even get cases where, okay, maybe they go with the lowest bidder,

00:34:25.620 but they're just saying the number that they want to hear.

00:34:29.640 And then they're like, okay, well, we'll build this bridge for $100,000,000.

00:34:33.520 And then it gets delayed, it's over budget, and there's no consequences.

00:34:38.900 So even in the cases like that, there's no accountability that would be there

00:34:44.800 in a private, like normally be there in a private sector.

00:34:47.320 That would, it would have the checks on itself.

00:34:53.200 You would have restructuring or even right now, we're not seeing

00:34:57.320 both at the municipal level and at the provincial and federal,

00:35:04.240 we're seeing bloat with no mechanism of downsizing

00:35:09.100 because no department wants to advocate or vote.

00:35:13.840 It's like no department's going to downsize itself.

00:35:16.640 People want to keep their jobs and they're going to justify a certain amount of work.

00:35:21.920 So if their department gets a certain amount of money,

00:35:24.460 they're going to try to maintain that budget every year.

00:35:29.240 It's not going to go down.

00:35:30.820 And anytime something goes down, the rhetoric's like, well,

00:35:33.980 you're cutting essential this or essential that.

00:35:37.820 And it just adds to the waste.

00:35:40.120 Well, 100%, it comes down to, this is your budget.

00:35:43.440 Make sure you spend it because otherwise they're going to cut your budget next year.

00:35:47.100 So it's just, just don't, don't turn the trucks off or don't this or don't that.

00:35:51.220 I wouldn't necessarily even say it's about creating work.

00:35:53.880 It's just about ensuring that, that you've, you know, you don't want to blow the budget.

00:36:00.360 Then, you know, then your head could be on the chopping block, right?

00:36:03.680 They'll replace you.

00:36:04.580 They're not, that won't reduce the budget, but just, this is the budget.

00:36:08.440 This is what it was last year.

00:36:10.240 This is what it was the year before.

00:36:13.940 You know, operating budget, right?

00:36:15.800 The capital budget, completely different, right?

00:36:17.900 Those are one-time costs.

00:36:19.040 But on operating budget, unless, you know, there's a new deal with the union and everybody's got 3% increase to their wages.

00:36:30.160 Okay.

00:36:30.320 That's factored in.

00:36:31.140 Budgets increased 3% or 2% because, you know, wages are 75% of the budget.

00:36:37.620 Whatever.

00:36:38.180 You know what I mean?

00:36:38.760 There is never any incentive or reason for them to cut budget, the budget, or to do things cheaper because, well, it's, it's, it's like their, it's like their world.

00:36:51.260 But, and I think the biggest reason why there's no incentive to, to cut budgets is because people aren't actually working with their own money.

00:37:00.060 And quite often when you do cut, it could end up costing you money when you're in the public service.

00:37:08.760 Right?

00:37:09.560 So, or costing you elections or things like that.

00:37:12.940 It's just, I've, I've struggled with this so much as do why aren't we just like axing the public service?

00:37:24.240 Like, why are we not just cutting off the fat?

00:37:27.160 What is the hold back?

00:37:28.560 What is the, what are the reasons that Edmonton, because I mean, there, there's people there that want to do this.

00:37:35.940 I mean, they, they go in on a platform of downsizing government, right?

00:37:42.440 So we get rid of 12 top managers at AHS.

00:37:45.840 That, that's not, that's not cutting government.

00:37:48.100 That's just, that, that was, that was driven by ideology, right?

00:37:52.140 That wasn't like we're cutting it to, to, to save dollars.

00:37:55.320 The 12 people behind them jumped into those positions.

00:37:58.500 And I mean, the ideology is the same.

00:38:00.500 I don't see that as some kind of a win, but how many jobs have been cut at AHS?

00:38:04.980 I don't think any jobs have been cut at AHS.

00:38:08.020 And AHS is a classic example in this province for obvious reasons.

00:38:12.140 But if anything, we've created more jobs at AHS.

00:38:16.780 I mean, the budget's increased.

00:38:17.940 They've given them another one or $2 billion last year.

00:38:21.240 And before you know it, we're going to be pushing $30 billion a year for, for, for AHS, the AHS budget.

00:38:28.120 30 of an $80 billion budget.

00:38:32.840 I'm sure we'll see that in the next two years as well.

00:38:34.980 So it's just, it's, it's frustrating because at a time where we have an all-time high production levels, I seen, you know, Brian Jean just shared something as well.

00:38:49.520 5% higher than last year as a whole.

00:38:51.120 5% higher than last year as a whole.

00:38:53.120 Super high resource revenue, resource dollar, or resource prices.

00:38:59.880 And we're still running a cash deficit.

00:39:01.800 We're still running a deficit in this province, right?

00:39:03.780 We should be stocking away billions, like almost $10, you know, $10 billion.

00:39:08.800 But no, we have politicians, and I mean all of them, the rurals, the urbans, all of them.

00:39:16.120 Because, I mean, if you don't speak up, you're complicit.

00:39:18.160 That's the way I look at it.

00:39:19.580 Who are part of this government and they're spending in a manner that makes Rachel Notley look like a saint.

00:39:27.120 Yeah, I said it, like, it makes Rachel Notley look like a saint.

00:39:31.840 Yeah, sure, she, we had a, sorry, the oil crashed.

00:39:38.820 And I mean, we were in a serious situation.

00:39:41.940 There was no resource revenue pumping up provincial coffers.

00:39:48.940 But we do now.

00:39:50.720 We do now.

00:39:51.640 And we're still, we've still spent everything.

00:39:53.060 So, there's a lot of problems.

00:39:54.980 But, I mean, this is just a big one because it just, it's affecting every aspect of this province at this point.

00:40:01.580 I mean, it feels like government, or like this province is booming.

00:40:04.800 But I like to say that government's booming.

00:40:07.280 I think, you know, Daniel Smith has increased the size of the public service by 11.2% since Jason Kenney.

00:40:15.960 Jason Kenney reduced it 7.6%.

00:40:18.060 He came in after Rachel Notley, and we knew that we had to reduce the size of public service.

00:40:23.060 Because she had increased it, like, 20-some percent.

00:40:25.940 But here we have the next premier, a conservative libertarian premier.

00:40:30.040 I mean, libertarian is lesser government as its founding principle, or to some degree, its basis.

00:40:35.800 And she increases the public service by 11.2%.

00:40:38.380 I mean, these aren't just numbers I think are cool, or I'm just like, I'll stick with that one.

00:40:44.260 No, these are real numbers.

00:40:45.880 You can do the research.

00:40:47.000 You can figure this out.

00:40:47.800 So that's, anyways, like I said, we're bouncing all over the place here.

00:40:51.740 But those are concerns.

00:40:52.800 Those are real issues that conservatives should be concerned with.

00:41:00.140 And we shouldn't allow our premier or our government to be able to just get away with that.

00:41:09.060 Because how does this benefit us, right?

00:41:12.120 We're supposed to be the fiscal ones.

00:41:13.560 We're supposed to be the ones that reduce government.

00:41:15.400 We're supposed to be the ones that cut services.

00:41:18.760 Because, not services, not critical services, but the cut into excess, waste, bloat.

00:41:27.620 So, yeah.

00:41:28.000 Well, it comes back to what you, I think that comes back to kind of what you said earlier when we were talking about the Bill of Rights.

00:41:32.580 I mean, it's going to involve putting some language down and taking some decisions that are going to ensure that you're just not going to get elected again.

00:41:44.800 It's going to require making decisions, like a politician going into a, diving into an issue knowing that this is going to cost me my job, but this is for the greater good in the long run.

00:41:58.280 You know, if you've got, you know, AHS is a great example.

00:42:01.640 I mean, they have an extremely powerful union.

00:42:03.700 And if you go in there and you, you know, if you're Danielle Smith and you have a certain, you know, message about, well, this is, this is the amount of jobs we're going to cut.

00:42:12.700 Well, it's amazing where that funding from AHS and that union messaging is going to go into ensuring that you're not allowed to carry out that, that threat.

00:42:23.600 Right.

00:42:24.320 So you've got a, you've got a problem where the, the right decision to take might be the one that guarantees that you're not allowed to take any more decisions.

00:42:35.500 Sure.

00:42:36.140 Okay.

00:42:36.460 Well, but that, that's the scenario.

00:42:39.000 That's what people, that's what I feel Edmonton is most worried about when it comes to big decisions, contentious issues.

00:42:47.660 That if we proceed with this, um, it could cost us in the polls and it could cost us on election day and we now lose, lose, I mean, lose government.

00:43:01.720 Well, there's a few different things that I would counter them with.

00:43:06.240 There's the morality of the issue.

00:43:08.420 There's what's the right thing to do regardless.

00:43:11.260 Um, it's not always the popular approach.

00:43:13.860 The right thing to do can be, can be put against the greater good.

00:43:20.520 And some people have different arguments.

00:43:22.000 Well, the greater good is if it's definitely not to, to, to lose government.

00:43:27.000 Well, if it's issue based and we have to stick to the issue and we can't always look down the road and say, well, we're going to lose a general election in three years.

00:43:34.320 No, this is the issue today.

00:43:35.940 But have we ever actually ran the whole scenario?

00:43:38.840 Have we ever said, we're going to cut downsized AHS.

00:43:45.980 We're going to reduce the public service as a whole.

00:43:48.520 We're going to cut the budget.

00:43:49.460 We're going to cut spending, which translates to, you know, the rallying cry of the left, which is jobs, jobs, jobs, public jobs.

00:43:57.980 Okay.

00:43:58.840 Have we ever done that?

00:44:01.060 And has it ever translated to the loss of government or the loss of support?

00:44:08.840 I would say no and no, because for one, we've never done that.

00:44:15.200 So we don't know if it actually translates to the loss of government.

00:44:18.560 We've never actually cut AHS.

00:44:21.280 We'll cut their budget, cut 10% of the work workforce.

00:44:25.500 I mean, the middle managers, I'm not saying firing doctors and nurses, like nobody needs to put words in my mouth there.

00:44:30.720 Middle managers.

00:44:31.560 It's a problem.

00:44:32.140 We know it's a problem.

00:44:33.140 Who's, who's got the kahunis to do something about it.

00:44:35.600 Plus, let's just back up a step.

00:44:38.700 Who do these people vote for?

00:44:41.400 Now, I'm not one to say, well, you don't vote for me.

00:44:43.800 Your job is going to get cut.

00:44:45.000 No.

00:44:45.320 But if you want to use that argument that it's going to cost us in the election, you're talking about people that don't support us.

00:44:52.020 Yeah.

00:44:52.220 They were never going to vote for you anyway.

00:44:53.680 They were never going to vote for you anyways.

00:44:55.080 And this goes back to a bigger concern.

00:44:58.000 There, the, if it feels like our conservative governments, I don't want to leave this just to Daniel Smith, but this government, the past government, previous PC governments, especially in the last decade or two in the age of media and such.

00:45:11.860 And, and, and, and the NDP, I mean, the NDP is not more than, uh, uh, uh, 10, 15.

00:45:18.760 Well, I mean, Rachel not least spent 17 years in, uh, in service as an MLA.

00:45:24.460 So 15 to 10 years.

00:45:27.640 So back, back to what I was saying.

00:45:29.260 We're worried about what the opposition says, what the support of the opposition is going to say, and what a opposition supporting mainstream media is going to say.

00:45:47.060 We're worried about that while we're failing to worry about the wrath that we are possibly going to incur from our membership, from our own base and from the people that support us.

00:46:01.100 So you can't make both of them happy at simultaneously that won't happen, but both don't vote for you either.

00:46:08.960 It's a very simple approach.

00:46:11.240 Now, some issues are not clear cut and there's always, there used to be a significant, uh, soft middle, mushy middle, you know, in the form of the Alberta party, but North American politics has eliminated the mushy middle.

00:46:27.080 I can promise you that we can see that everywhere in the States, down South, up North, there is no more middle ground.

00:46:34.260 I mean, I think we're even going to see the elimination or the consolidation of the NDP and the liberals in the next four years.

00:46:39.660 And, and I, I could see it happening because I mean, they're both going to get completely annihilated and I think for them to have any chance of restructuring, they'll have to.

00:46:47.920 And I mean, I don't know what separates the two other than color at this point, their ideology is the same.

00:46:53.700 So we're going to see the complete elimination of this, this middle neutral political standpoint where, you know, I might be a, uh, social liberal and a fiscal conservative.

00:47:07.420 Which equates what progressive conservative, or I don't know what the, what the term for the right of the left is.

00:47:14.860 It's just, it's doesn't exist.

00:47:17.040 The issues are too divisive partisanship, uh, or non-partisanship is completely out the door, which is unfortunate.

00:47:24.600 I mean, I'm not necessarily okay with some of this.

00:47:26.960 I think it's, there's, there's the ability for political parties, for MLAs, for people to work together on issues that benefit all Albertans, uh, to work across the aisle.

00:47:37.560 To me, that's, that's a loss as a whole.

00:47:39.940 That's not something we should celebrate, but this is the reality we're facing.

00:47:43.380 We have the left, we have the right, terms I don't necessarily like to use, but there is a, there is a abyss.

00:47:50.660 There is a huge divide, and there's very few people that stand in there, in, in the middle and say, oh, well, I kind of like the NDP sometimes.

00:47:58.620 And no, you, you, you don't.

00:48:00.940 We're so far apart.

00:48:02.000 We've moved so far from, like, I think the center has moved so far.

00:48:06.060 And, you know, conservatives, some of them may have just stayed put, and the left has moved even further.

00:48:14.420 Like, it's, it's, it's unfortunate, but I mean, this, this, this attempt to cater to people who actually, frankly speaking, hate your effing guts is, is the most, it's, it's not a political position anymore.

00:48:31.260 It, to me, it either means you're not saying who you really are, or you're attempting to move to the center, but to think that there are people who, like, that there's some sort of a swing vote in this province, I don't know.

00:48:48.700 I, I just don't believe it.

00:48:49.800 Sure, there's a couple thousand.

00:48:51.140 Of course there is, but I don't believe there's this 15% that is this, this, this significant swing vote.

00:48:56.420 I just don't believe it.

00:48:57.980 Yeah.

00:48:58.400 So, anyways.

00:49:00.400 Yeah.

00:49:01.260 Yeah, it's, uh, it's certainly, uh, hard to argue that, that, uh, North American politics hasn't, uh, seen a swift, uh, exit from the center to the, uh, to the polls.

00:49:14.480 Um, do you have a theory on, um, like, there, there's a, I don't know if you're familiar with this theory of, have you heard of the term horseshoe theory before?

00:49:28.040 Uh, with respect to politics?

00:49:29.540 So, there's, there's a, there's a theory that, um, rather than viewing politics on a left-right spectrum, you can view it more as a horseshoe shape.

00:49:39.820 Oh, that way.

00:49:40.540 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:41.380 Oh, 100%.

00:49:41.920 The furthest left and the furthest right tend to resemble each other, and then there's the bulk of people.

00:49:46.980 They're not, 100% I have.

00:49:49.100 I mean, I'm a big believer in that.

00:49:51.100 I just have never had it, heard it called horseshoe.

00:49:53.180 I've always just interpreted, I says, the far left and the far right, they're not as far apart as you think they are.

00:49:59.400 Is that more on the authoritarian aspect of it?

00:50:03.920 So, if you're trying to map that out on the quadrant, you'd be going up in the vertical axis towards, uh, the authoritarian and away from the libertarian.

00:50:12.920 Um, the, the other thing I've kind of wondered or I've kind of noticed is there's almost two battles happening right now.

00:50:22.060 There's the, on the conservative side, we have dissent and vocal voices trying to help rein us in and try to, like, get some accountability for the principles that, well, obviously, we want a little bit less government.

00:50:38.480 We want responsible governance and spending, and we don't want to be increasing debt.

00:50:44.760 We don't want to be in, in that kind of a fiscal situation, but there's also the, the wokeness aspect, which is prevalent on the left, because I do have a lot of friends and family that would be, I don't think they fully understand the degree of the identity politics,

00:51:04.040 but they go along with it because the left has asserted the moral position has called everybody bad and almost like as conservatives, they're in a defensive position and they don't have the guts to really be able to like fully articulate what they get wrong in some of these arguments.

00:51:27.520 And you got to have, you got to have, you got to reject the game that they're playing because somebody would be like, well, you're a racist.

00:51:34.580 I'm like, well, that's a baseless, you can't, you can't even go down that road.

00:51:40.180 You got to reject their game and then stick to the principles and poke holes in the underlying framework.

00:51:50.080 But that takes a little bit of, a little bit of balls.

00:51:54.620 And we have hints of that in some politicians, but the appeasement's a losing game because the left will just assert again, the moral ground and then beat you at their own game.

00:52:09.100 And it's like exactly what you said earlier.

00:52:10.520 They were never, your apology never meant anything to them in the first place.

00:52:14.980 They were never going to change their opinion on you.

00:52:16.760 Right.

00:52:17.520 So yeah, there, there does seem to be a, a, a dearth of, um, politicians, um, willing to accept the heat of just unabashedly coming out and saying, listen, this is, this is what I believe in.

00:52:30.740 And it's fine.

00:52:31.340 If you don't like it, I'm not going to be, be, uh, you know, intimidated by you calling me names.

00:52:36.820 Well, a hundred percent.

00:52:38.420 And you know what the biggest key detail is to the key ingredient to identity politics, it's your own identity.

00:52:47.760 It's your ability to stand there, to take the beating, to take, and I mean, for one person, it means absolutely nothing.

00:52:56.100 And for the next, it's, it's a, it's a real life crisis, right?

00:53:00.860 I'm making headlines.

00:53:02.560 The press is beating up on me.

00:53:04.200 The opposition is beating up me.

00:53:05.260 Some people laugh it off.

00:53:06.760 Like, what do you, what did you expect?

00:53:08.860 Like, I mean, it's, I mean, you get used to it.

00:53:11.980 Somebody who has been, uh, who's been, uh, who's made a headline or two.

00:53:17.320 It just doesn't, doesn't, it's for some, I can get it.

00:53:20.780 Like I probably have brothers or family members or people I know that they wouldn't sleep all week if their name appeared in the paper.

00:53:28.200 And, I mean, lately it's been fairly quiet, but not a month goes by, there's not something.

00:53:36.520 And it's just like, oh, cool.

00:53:37.820 Oh, somebody sends you something.

00:53:39.120 It's like, oh, great.

00:53:39.700 I said something.

00:53:40.840 I mean, I tweeted something.

00:53:42.520 It's just, for some, it's character matters.

00:53:45.540 And that's, for some, it's just not who they are.

00:53:47.640 And that's why they're in the position they're in or, or, or not.

00:53:51.660 But to ignore the issue is, to me, not, that's unacceptable.

00:53:58.960 It's not, it's not even possible anymore, right?

00:54:02.400 If this is how you identify, and this is, and I'm not talking about how you identify in relation to the identity politics of today's day and age.

00:54:11.160 No, what, what you believe in, what your moral standing is, then profess that.

00:54:16.520 I mean, you're going to take some heat.

00:54:21.660 Or not.

00:54:23.980 But if you, if you, you know, if you stand firmly in your shoes and remain respectful, take that approach that this is what you believe in.

00:54:37.140 That's my right to, to believe such in relation to the laws of the land that are still there.

00:54:44.580 I've been elected to represent said party, said people in relation to who I am and what I believe in and the morals that I have.

00:54:55.280 And I make no apology.

00:54:57.840 And I make no apology.

00:54:59.700 I mean, you can, like, that's it.

00:55:02.440 That's all.

00:55:03.040 It's not up for discussion.

00:55:04.540 If I upset you, I'm sorry.

00:55:06.300 This is who I am.

00:55:08.120 Take it.

00:55:09.780 Or not.

00:55:10.740 I mean, it's just, the people that try to work around it, like, sometimes you see it in the media.

00:55:17.240 Sometimes there's, you know, pressers where staffers have put together mumble-jumble wording.

00:55:25.020 And I know sometimes the people that have the ministers and such, they're like, well, this is put there for me.

00:55:30.220 But it's like, well, no, then write your own speeches.

00:55:34.200 Then write your own statements.

00:55:35.820 Then write your own tweets.

00:55:36.760 But to go along with what is very clearly a left-leaning, driven by the left, and in its roots, a anti-society, anti...

00:55:50.020 I'm trying to think of the word here.

00:55:55.980 I mean, anti-humanity, because, I mean, the basis of humanity, the basis of our society is founded on the fact that we've got men and women.

00:56:07.820 And it takes the two of them to, what's the word here, to, you know, to create offspring, like, to, you know, to build a family, et cetera.

00:56:25.280 How can we entertain?

00:56:26.820 I understand there's always, there's scenarios, there's things like that.

00:56:29.980 There's sensitive subjects, there's sensitive situations.

00:56:32.560 But to build legislation to create a basis or a standard around what is a 0.007% of the population, that doesn't make any sense.

00:56:48.220 Yes, we have to be respectful.

00:56:50.080 We have to take care of, I don't want to use any improper language, but I don't have all the proper terminology.

00:57:00.640 But there are unique situations.

00:57:05.440 And I'm aware of that.

00:57:08.980 But to take those and to shove that down the throat of the rest of society in a manner that confuses the next generation.

00:57:21.000 And now we're really talking identity politics.

00:57:24.040 But that's just, that's wrong, for one.

00:57:30.000 And when conservatives apologize for that, ignore it, or try to tippy-toe around it, it just, it disgusts me.

00:57:40.940 Because it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, I think it's an agenda, it's an evil agenda driven by, not driven by, it's driven by those who look to divide and conquer.

00:57:55.280 To those who, who benefit off of the destruction of either the family unit or, or society as a whole.

00:58:03.120 Like, I, I see that there's no good in it, and there's no good in entertaining it or acknowledging it.

00:58:11.720 And that's unfortunate.

00:58:13.060 I think there's been some, some positive legislation that have made its way through the legislature this year, which is a first step.

00:58:18.860 Like, let's be very clear.

00:58:19.880 It's not as far as any of us would like it to go.

00:58:22.480 But it's acknowledging that there was a problem.

00:58:25.820 But what we need to acknowledge as well is that for every little step we take, they're going to take 10.

00:58:30.700 And we need to start moving at the speed or countering them at the speed that they're, that the left is moving.

00:58:35.860 And this is not specifically the NDP.

00:58:37.480 This is, this is just what's happening in North America, around the world.

00:58:41.780 Like, it's, it's, it's a, it's a rot.

00:58:47.220 It's a, it's, it's seriously a rot in, in politics.

00:58:49.900 And I think it needs to be addressed and stamped out.

00:58:52.740 And, and I hope over time it will.

00:58:54.520 It's kind of like cancel culture.

00:58:55.920 I think we've kind of seen the tail end of cancel culture.

00:58:58.760 People are starting to be able to be who they are, say who they are without being completely canceled and effectively canceled.

00:59:05.120 Right.

00:59:05.400 I mean, for the stupidest shit.

00:59:07.060 So is this a trend?

00:59:08.920 Let's hope it's a trend.

00:59:09.860 Let's hope it's a trend that's on the tail end.

00:59:11.900 And I mean, there's been a lot of hurt, hurt and harm done.

00:59:15.020 I got too much, but.

00:59:17.500 Let's hope that the full cost is becoming, you know, public.

00:59:24.480 At least I hope it is anyways.

00:59:26.580 I think one of the terms you were looking for when you were describing this was it, it definitely is anti-human.

00:59:33.040 Anti-human.

00:59:33.860 But it's, yeah, but it's, we, we bring them up all the time on the channel, but one of our favorite thinkers is a guy named Peter Boghossian.

00:59:42.060 And he's called, he, I think it was him who developed this term called substitution hypothesis.

00:59:49.200 And, and so the, the subs, his, his definition of it is that as societies have become, Western societies have become less and less religious over recent decades.

01:00:02.380 They've substituted the place that religion normally carries in their lives with other things.

01:00:09.100 And then they start to behave in religious ways or in cult-like ways about those ideas.

01:00:15.720 And that is, I think what you see with a lot of the, the gender ideology now is that it feels like, to me, the way that people describe gender ideology is if you just replace some words and you, and you, you know, you use the word like Holy Spirit or soul or things like that.

01:00:33.340 Like it's, all it really is, is religious language, sort of in the guise of a, of a social movement, you know, and, and cult-like behavior like that is very difficult to counter because the people who believe it, believe that it's a part of them.

01:00:46.780 And it's not just a, you know, a temporary belief.

01:00:49.440 It's not just like a, a preference of, you know, uh, you know, a beer over wine or something like that.

01:00:54.380 It's something that's integral to somebody's own identity.

01:00:57.040 A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

01:00:59.260 And I think a classic example on a different level is, is to some degree, you know, if you're, if you're Christian or, uh, of a religious, religious background that believes in creation, then the, you, you, you step away from that.

01:01:14.020 You, you, you gotta, you gotta fill that vacuum.

01:01:16.020 Well, what, what has, what have we done, right?

01:01:18.120 Like we've created this, this ever-changing, uh, um, ideology and thought of evolution.

01:01:28.840 That's, I guess that's the word in and of itself.

01:01:30.820 And I'm not going to go into too much there, but it's a vacuum.

01:01:35.160 It's a vacuum that they've had to fill and they've filled it with, I mean, currently gender ideology.

01:01:39.880 And I'm sure there's other things out there that is, that are, um, that are more of a minority in, in, uh, in, in respect to the people that support that or, or promote that in whatever part of the world.

01:01:55.000 But in the Western hemisphere, this, this, this gender ideology has become a religion.

01:01:59.680 It's, it's, it's, it's been fanatical, like it's crazy.

01:02:03.740 And thankfully it's being addressed because of the severe consequences of those who've been harmed the worst by it and they're, them speaking out.

01:02:13.600 So the gender ideology is being addressed, but it does reflect a greater shift, um, away from certain, away from like communities, families, and religions seem to be the most resistant to top down.

01:02:29.680 Kind of political influence.

01:02:33.820 So if you fractionate people and obviously like, if you look at this libertarian principle of like, we've got to protect the individual, the, or like the institution of the individual is we've got to protect that.

01:02:49.800 But at the same time, we can't throw out some of these core pillars of what society, like what we've developed society with, and we've had strong family units, strong community units, and the community through religion as well.

01:03:08.820 And if you look at early Canada, early United States, the role of the government at the federal level was, it was a little bit more hands-off on people's day-to-day activities.

01:03:21.660 And you'd have a shared purpose that people would volunteer effort for a common goal to improve their communities, to improve their religious circle or their extended family.

01:03:34.260 And right now we're not seeing the same drive because we've eroded these institutions and I, I feel like as you erode that down and unless we do something to re either rebuild some of these communities, which we're, we're seeing a little, little bit of right now.

01:03:54.720 But unless we really get these, the communities and families strengthened, what's like, what's replacing it is top-down government control and ideologies weaponized through, through governments to, and there can be whatever selfish means, but people are more easily controlled when these structures are not there.

01:04:19.960 Oh, a hundred percent.

01:04:21.360 A hundred percent.

01:04:21.880 Yeah.

01:04:24.720 Marco, uh, let's, um, let's zoom out for a second.

01:04:29.260 I'm curious, uh, you, before you were, um, uh, maybe let's say infamous, uh, because of the, uh, the, uh, events, um, you, you had, uh, you know, you were involved in, in municipal politics long before that.

01:04:46.880 What was, um, what was the initial driver?

01:04:49.560 I believe you got into politics very young.

01:04:51.300 What, what, what was sort of the, uh, the, the driver for you to get involved in politics in the first place?

01:04:57.140 Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.

01:04:59.000 Um, like a question I've definitely addressed a few times and, uh, I'll, uh, I'll finish it off with what I actually ran into when I entered politics versus what I thought I was entering or I thought I was getting myself into.

01:05:12.300 Um, um, I was a contributing part of my community.

01:05:16.060 I got in, it interested me, um, there had been some fairly divisive figures in our local, uh, council and, um, being, you know, a bit, uh, uh, how would you say that?

01:05:32.540 I mean, I, I, I was always looking for a little bit of adventure, um, not one to sit still, but, uh,

01:05:42.300 and, and, and a bit impulsive as well.

01:05:44.820 I, I, you know, I thought, Hey, this is something that might interest me.

01:05:49.800 So let's do it.

01:05:51.680 And before you know it, you know, you've talked to some people, you've got some support and you're off to the races.

01:05:59.260 You, you run this campaign.

01:06:00.420 And I mean, I was successful.

01:06:02.760 I think I ran against, I think 14 other people.

01:06:07.480 Um, so six counselors.

01:06:09.360 So, I mean, I was top five of 14.

01:06:13.360 So, but it was, it was a positive thing, right?

01:06:17.180 People are always looking for the younger generation enter politics.

01:06:20.960 It almost seems like it's the 60 year olds that are your, uh, your, your contributors.

01:06:27.360 And they are, but it's, should be something that, um, my generation is, uh, more concerned with.

01:06:35.860 But, but I get why, why they're not, especially in today's day and age, right?

01:06:38.880 Struggle to just make ends meet with very little time for anything else.

01:06:43.260 But I, I still think that's a bit of an excuse, but I entered politics.

01:06:48.900 And one of the reasons why I decided to do that was I just wanted to contribute back to the community

01:06:53.880 or contribute to the community, um, you know, services, basic level of services, right?

01:07:02.600 That's what communities provide for their citizens.

01:07:05.240 You know, make sure the streets are paved, lights are on, all of that stuff, right?

01:07:09.180 Let's, let's, let's, town was growing, um, at a decent rate.

01:07:13.860 There'd been some decent investment.

01:07:16.420 Uh, I had just started my company.

01:07:18.120 I thought I, this is how I can contribute.

01:07:19.760 And that's what I did.

01:07:22.520 That's what happened.

01:07:23.960 Um, what I ended up getting involved in though, and this is not exclusive Fort McLeod.

01:07:29.980 This is, this is at that time, that was a trend that was making its way through, through municipal

01:07:37.260 government period across the country was these federal level social issues and make, and how

01:07:47.620 they made their way to the local levels, um, things from crosswalks to pride flags, to every

01:07:54.600 little artsy fartsy social or, you know, social program and, and how it was a responsibility

01:08:02.380 or how there was a desire for municipalities to get involved and to have a position and

01:08:06.960 to have a say.

01:08:07.700 So, um, what I thought municipal government was and what it actually turned out to be are

01:08:15.240 two completely different things.

01:08:16.620 But, but that being said, I, I enjoyed it.

01:08:21.500 I mean, there was, there was moments, there was, there was definitely, uh, times of crisis

01:08:27.860 versus, you know, a year or so of this was, this is a great year.

01:08:32.540 We had a, you know, nothing controversial.

01:08:35.260 Um, nobody lit a flagpole on fire or something like that.

01:08:38.600 Not that, that, that never happened in our town, but it happened in a neighboring town.

01:08:43.080 And it's like for a town council, regardless of your position on that, it's tough because

01:08:47.640 it brings attention to an issue that is festering in society and that you ultimately don't have

01:08:54.460 the ability to do anything about other than to issue some public statement.

01:08:58.880 Right?

01:09:00.820 So, um, it, uh, I learned a lot and it, if anything, it, it, um, it was a step for me to get involved

01:09:14.560 in provincial politics.

01:09:15.380 And when I say get involved, I've never been involved on an elected level in provincial politics.

01:09:19.540 It's never been a goal.

01:09:20.920 It's never been something that I've, that I've, that, that has even presented itself.

01:09:25.560 Um, my mind is more of a behind the scenes on an advocacy side of things and, uh, effective advocacy.

01:09:32.160 I mean, I've, I've, uh, I have the ability to pull some levers for better or for worse.

01:09:37.380 Depends who you ask.

01:09:38.800 Um, but, uh, I, I had some very positive years in the town of Forma Cloud on municipal council.

01:09:46.600 And, um, I, I resigned earlier this year in February because I didn't want to drag myself

01:09:53.840 through the courts.

01:09:55.340 You've all seen the Fort McLeod town or, uh, Coots blockade organizer for McLeod town

01:10:01.440 counselor, right?

01:10:02.040 Like it was just always Fort McLeod.

01:10:04.720 It was, and I didn't want to do that.

01:10:07.520 I didn't want to drag them through the courts because that's what you're kind of, you're

01:10:10.700 kind of doing that.

01:10:11.560 Right.

01:10:11.900 And I know people still know me as such people, if they write, you know, the, the media

01:10:16.380 connections I have, um, be it CBC to Don Braid or whoever they're, they're, they're,

01:10:23.560 oh, you're, they're a previous Forma Cloud.

01:10:25.760 Like they still associate the town to you.

01:10:28.160 Right.

01:10:28.420 So, but back to, back to the question.

01:10:30.320 I mean, just a genuine desire to get involved in, uh, in, in politics.

01:10:35.000 And I mean, looking back now, I'd like to say, bring a certain level of common sense.

01:10:40.700 I mean, sure, uh, I, I did that very effectively, um, to the point where there are those in the

01:10:49.120 community, many in the community, even those who don't necessarily agree with all of my

01:10:52.540 views, who just felt that I was a very grounded voice in council chambers on, on issues.

01:10:59.580 I was there for the community.

01:11:00.780 It wasn't there for me.

01:11:01.620 It wasn't there for my business.

01:11:02.580 And I always took that, I always brought that common sense approach that is so lacking

01:11:09.500 in politics these days.

01:11:11.300 And, uh, yeah, I just, um, I, I, I can thank my upbringing for that.

01:11:16.300 Right.

01:11:16.900 Resourceful, um, think outside the box approach, but like, let's not try to reinvent the wheel

01:11:24.300 guys, or why are we doing it this way?

01:11:26.400 I don't give a shit if the MGA, um, says this is the best way to do something that may

01:11:33.880 be as an umbrella approach to things, but what works in, uh, what works in Valley view

01:11:39.280 or, or some other, you know, uh, West lock that, that might not work in form of cloud,

01:11:45.760 right?

01:11:45.920 This is a big country.

01:11:46.780 This is a big country and it's diverse and it's, uh, there's, there's a lot of different,

01:11:52.300 uh, issues and, and problems that different municipalities face that you can't take a

01:12:00.380 blanket approach to.

01:12:01.240 So I was always, I, I thought about things, right.

01:12:05.140 And I was, I, I had an opinion, you're, you're bound to hear it.

01:12:08.920 And I respected the democratic process, um, and the voice that I had there, but, um, yeah,

01:12:15.040 so that's, that's a bit of, uh, those six, seven years I'll, that'll, I'll never forget

01:12:20.460 them and who knows, maybe there's a stint on municipal, of municipal politics in my

01:12:25.600 future.

01:12:26.180 It's not something I would say no to.

01:12:29.060 I, uh, I understand it.

01:12:30.500 I enjoy it.

01:12:31.420 And what I did learn is that we always look to, you know, you have the prime minister

01:12:36.620 or the premier, always look to these figures who are at the top, who we think they affect,

01:12:40.700 they, they influence our lives.

01:12:42.480 They affect our community or they're in control.

01:12:47.140 No, no, it's your local level.

01:12:49.400 It's your local government that has the most impact in one's life.

01:12:54.340 And that is the, the, the biggest misunderstanding in, in politics.

01:13:00.860 People like to, they want to talk to the bar.

01:13:03.460 They want to talk to the premier.

01:13:04.380 They want to, it's like, no, you got to talk to your town council, talk to your counselors.

01:13:09.560 They impact you.

01:13:12.320 What they do impacts you more, you know, you know, more daily than any other level of government.

01:13:19.400 Period.

01:13:20.440 Like, I understand foreign affairs.

01:13:23.120 It impacts us how, how people view us.

01:13:26.000 But does it really like, okay, China or India and Canada are kind of, you know, at loggerheads

01:13:32.080 right now.

01:13:32.540 But does that really impact us?

01:13:34.680 Does it, doesn't impact me daily.

01:13:37.120 Whereas your mill rate or your garbage collection or whether your street is, is safe or paved

01:13:43.360 or whatever.

01:13:44.040 I mean, your kids or your playground or your service levels, like those are all the things

01:13:48.780 or what services are available.

01:13:50.080 Or is your, your council, you know, very restrictive, very, a lot of red tape.

01:13:54.160 You know, now you don't have an eye doctor or a chiropractor or all these services that

01:14:00.180 you now need to go to the big city for.

01:14:01.940 Sure.

01:14:02.180 There are some provincial regulated services like hospital, education, things like that,

01:14:08.360 that the town council has no control over, but most everything else that's in the realm

01:14:15.580 of municipal government.

01:14:16.800 And that impacts us every day.

01:14:18.860 So that's something I've, I found out very quickly and I've always, I've always shared

01:14:24.620 that message.

01:14:25.160 And I think that is starting to hit home as well.

01:14:27.360 If we see the interest in school boards, municipal politics, you know, the upcoming, um, October,

01:14:34.200 uh, uh, municipal elections and all the other, like all the other, um, elections that happen

01:14:41.320 at the same time, that's, it's going to be an interesting 2025.

01:14:44.180 And I think people are starting to realize that, that, that level of government has a significant

01:14:50.960 and maybe even too much of an impact in one's life.

01:14:54.340 So to me, it's that awareness that's important.

01:14:57.660 And, um, you know, the fact that people are starting to see that that's, that's, uh, that's

01:15:03.580 a very positive, that's very positive.

01:15:06.540 Um, and James, I'll get, I'll let you get the last word in here after I asked, uh, Mark

01:15:10.880 with this, um, uh, before we hit record, uh, I told you to, uh, I said, hold that thought

01:15:17.720 because you were getting into a really good point about, um, we, we mentioned, uh, you

01:15:22.020 know, the, the general, uh, maybe disconnect, uh, in, in maybe recent months or, or years

01:15:27.720 between how we feel politics is going in Alberta versus how politics is going in general across

01:15:34.120 the country.

01:15:34.580 And you mentioned that you're not sure if Canada as a whole is salvageable anymore, but

01:15:40.060 you still have a little bit of hope for Alberta.

01:15:42.300 What, what would your hope for Alberta be?

01:15:44.400 And, and, and what, if you had to, if you had to, you know, um, pick the most salient

01:15:50.740 points, why do you feel the country is maybe gone down a path of no return, but we're not

01:15:56.780 necessarily that far gone in Alberta right now?

01:16:00.940 Well, so it's, it's more of a, it's more of a, our, our role, Alberta's role in, in the

01:16:09.540 confederation, not necessarily issues based, you know, um, debts, all of those things.

01:16:15.880 Those are, if one makes the attempt, you can tackle those issues.

01:16:21.360 The, how, like the realization that confederation is, is not fair and has never been fair to

01:16:29.540 the West and particularly Alberta is something that, I mean, I think there's millions of dollars

01:16:37.400 spent every year to suppress that thought, to suppress any kind of movement on that.

01:16:42.080 Um, I can say in the form of Alberta separation, I, that's not, I'm not an Alberta separatist.

01:16:48.800 I mean, I, I think that it's possible.

01:16:51.380 Uh, I definitely feel that the province needs to start taking some serious, serious steps

01:16:55.260 into the domain of more sovereignty on all levels.

01:16:59.460 Uh, we want what Quebec has.

01:17:01.500 We're not, we don't hate Quebec.

01:17:03.580 We're just jealous.

01:17:04.960 We're jealous of Quebec.

01:17:06.240 Quebec.

01:17:06.720 That's what this whole Quebec versus Alberta, we hate each other.

01:17:10.680 Bullshit.

01:17:11.220 We just want what they want.

01:17:12.780 Why can't we get what they want?

01:17:14.360 Right.

01:17:14.900 So, and there's ways to do that.

01:17:16.820 And I mean, Edmonton doesn't want to do that because the CPC and the UCP, you know, you

01:17:20.720 have these two conservative parties that are not as connected as per se an NDP liberal

01:17:24.960 or NDP federal or provincial, but they're connected.

01:17:28.140 We have MLAs whose dads are MPs.

01:17:30.320 They, these, these guys are connected.

01:17:31.640 So, uh, any real, um, you know, any, any serious thought of, of more sovereignty or, or more

01:17:41.720 independence from, from the federal government in the last couple of years has been heavily

01:17:47.020 suppressed by, uh, a, a very imposing and incoming here, poly of government, uh, based on the

01:17:54.000 polls today.

01:17:54.440 I mean, anything could change, but why I don't, why I believe that Canada is no longer salvageable.

01:18:02.300 I mean, as a, as a country, it's a very real thing.

01:18:05.800 I moved to Canada, I'm an immigrant, but I believe that our current form of like, we have

01:18:12.500 a Westminster parliament, parliamentary democracy.

01:18:14.420 That's a system we, we utilize on a federal level, on a provincial level, but unless the,

01:18:20.360 unless we, we open up, um, for key issues such as equalization, unless those issues, issues

01:18:28.500 are addressed, there is, we, we, we are, there's going to be an end to this.

01:18:35.260 I mean, Alberta is going to see itself at the end of a rope sooner or later, and I'll, and

01:18:40.160 I'll, I'll share this scenario, right?

01:18:42.640 Pierre Polyev is going to be great when it comes to a national, international stage.

01:18:46.300 We're going to, we're not going to be the, the embarrassment of the, of the day much longer,

01:18:50.640 but Pierre Polyev isn't going to benefit Alberta because every government in this country needs

01:18:58.580 Quebec and Ontario to form government.

01:19:00.900 They don't need Alberta.

01:19:02.560 Now the CPC has Alberta and that's how they, they, they've always had it.

01:19:07.400 That's not even something that we're not the swing here.

01:19:09.880 We're the swing vote is the East, right?

01:19:14.060 We know that there's, Maritimes is more of a swing vote than Alberta and Saskatchewan are.

01:19:20.740 We, we, I mean, we, we, we, we vote in blue fence posts in this part of the country.

01:19:26.120 So what I'm saying with that, if we don't have the ability to, to address these serious

01:19:33.640 grievances that this province and that the West have, and, and I would say when I say

01:19:38.480 the West, sure, there's parts of BC.

01:19:40.440 The, I think Saskatchewan is definitely getting on board with some of these issues and they

01:19:44.680 have a different way of dealing with them, but Alberta is, is the, the, we're the, we're

01:19:49.480 the front row here.

01:19:50.560 We're the, we're the ones that have the most grievances and we're the ones that have been

01:19:55.440 at the receiving end of this government in the last, the attacks that this government

01:20:00.820 has, um, uh, you know, attacked us on, uh, the issues that this government has attacked

01:20:09.740 us on.

01:20:10.160 So there's, there's things that have to be addressed, but I don't see a political avenue

01:20:18.280 or a political will to, to address these issues.

01:20:21.760 I mean, what needs to happen for us to be able to address equalization, right?

01:20:27.620 We had a referendum here and he, like we had a referendum that was supported by how, like

01:20:34.160 how much percent to, what was it again?

01:20:37.700 I'd have to, what was Kenny's referendum on?

01:20:41.260 It was like a fair, right.

01:20:43.760 Right, but that's all great.

01:20:46.620 So Alberta and Albertans, uh, feel that equalization is unfair and that, um, it should be addressed

01:20:54.920 or the algorithm should be, um, should be changed.

01:21:00.000 But what ability do we have to make that happen on a political side?

01:21:05.020 We don't, we don't have support in, in parliament.

01:21:09.120 62% of Albertans vote, yes.

01:21:11.500 Right, yes.

01:21:13.060 So we don't have support in parliament.

01:21:14.820 We just don't have the support in our own party.

01:21:17.620 We definitely don't have the support in relation to, to the, the seats, um, on the Senate, it's

01:21:24.100 a whole different side of things.

01:21:25.200 I mean, that's not the avenue for starters, but, um, we don't, the Senate is, is elected

01:21:33.900 by Ottawa again, right?

01:21:35.340 Uh, or appointed by Ottawa.

01:21:36.840 Our senators, we have, I think three or four senators in waiting as we speak, Alberta senators.

01:21:41.500 So, people are going to interpret this, oh, you know, we're, we're, we need to separate

01:21:47.880 or we need to, no, there has to be a complete restructuring of confederation.

01:21:54.620 I mean, we actually have to go back to confederation.

01:21:57.020 We have Alberta, or sorry, Ottawa needs to take a step back and we need to go back to a,

01:22:04.940 a setting where, um, where the provinces had exclusive, uh, authority over their jurisdictions

01:22:14.300 and that Ottawa stayed in their lane.

01:22:17.260 We now have a, we now have levels of taxation federally that fill the coffers in Ottawa that

01:22:24.580 then, that then allows Ottawa to dangle a carrot in front of the provincial governments

01:22:31.120 on issues that are exclusively provincial jurisdiction.

01:22:37.460 That has been an issue.

01:22:39.340 COVID exposed that issue more than ever, and it continues to be an issue.

01:22:43.260 So, now we have the federal government interfering in health, education, uh, social services,

01:22:51.320 you name it, because they're funding it, but they're using our dollars to fund it.

01:22:55.800 Why?

01:22:56.940 Because they have access to our dollars because the provinces exclusive of Quebec don't tax

01:23:04.760 or, or don't, um, or allow Ottawa to, to tax the citizens instead of the province taxing

01:23:11.720 the citizens, right?

01:23:12.840 Ottawa has, Ottawa controls the, the CPP.

01:23:17.440 We need to take back our pension.

01:23:19.140 We need, so policing, there's all these issues that in my mind are provincial.

01:23:25.800 And it's provincial jurisdiction is up to the province to dictate if, if confederation remains

01:23:35.680 a positive, a viable solution to Alberta's prosperity.

01:23:42.100 I don't believe it can be done federally.

01:23:44.000 I do not believe that federal politics is going to make the change in Alberta that Albertans are

01:23:51.020 looking for.

01:23:51.560 It is only up to Edmonton and is up to Edmonton to realize the muscle that it wields and to

01:23:57.340 utilize, I guess, different example, to realize it's holding a stick and to use that stick.

01:24:03.640 And that again, brings me back to some of the frustrations of Daniel Smith or that I have

01:24:08.340 with Daniel Smith, because you ran on a campaign of wielding that stick.

01:24:12.740 Like, and I feel that the incoming, I feel the relations between Edmonton and Ottawa or

01:24:17.480 the incoming CPC or sorry, the CPC party and the fact that they don't want to ruffle the

01:24:25.840 feathers of the East is, is why some of these issues have gone away again, right?

01:24:33.260 Um, so does that explain things a bit more?

01:24:38.400 Some people like, oh, confederation, if, if federal politics is, is not an option, then

01:24:43.100 separation.

01:24:43.860 No, not, not necessarily separation, but only Alberta and only Edmonton.

01:24:48.940 When I say Edmonton, I mean, the provincial government has the ability to make the changes,

01:24:54.280 um, to the, to confederation, to equalization, to all these issues that benefit Alberta.

01:25:01.340 There is no way that parliament is going to ever rule in a manner that benefits Alberta

01:25:09.240 first.

01:25:09.760 We will always remain second fiddle in Ottawa.

01:25:12.700 And in Edmonton, we are first and Edmonton needs to realize, I mean, they, they, they realize

01:25:18.380 that, but they need to, they need to take a, they need to take a page at a Cubex, um,

01:25:24.280 uh, what their playbook, their playbook.

01:25:29.540 Sorry.

01:25:30.160 They need to take a step out of Quebec's playbook, which brings me back to, we don't

01:25:34.200 hate Quebec.

01:25:34.800 We don't hate Quebecers.

01:25:35.780 We don't hate, I mean, I think it's bullshit that their bilingualism.

01:25:41.220 I think that's an issue maybe to some degree, but it doesn't really affect us, but we're

01:25:45.120 just jealous.

01:25:45.820 We're just jealous that they have the levels of sovereignty and the independence that they

01:25:50.880 have.

01:25:51.200 And every time they threaten something, Ottawa jumps, that's all.

01:25:54.280 That's it.

01:25:55.340 Right.

01:25:56.300 So that's, uh, that's, that's, that's, that's my approach to, to, um, our current confederation

01:26:04.380 and why, I mean, I vote federally, but I don't think federal politics is going to get us out

01:26:10.240 of this mess that we're in.

01:26:11.480 Well, and it's worth reminding that, like, even for myself up to a point, I thought the

01:26:19.400 hierarchy was federal and then provincial under it and not realizing, well, provincials at

01:26:26.400 the same level as federal within their jurisdiction.

01:26:30.900 And I think this is where kind of the, uh, the forever optimist, uh, Eva Cipiak is she, her, her focus is just get people engaged.

01:26:44.760 Well, get the level of education and understanding about civic engagement higher for the, if you get more people engaged and if people have, have the knowledge of like, well, this is actually under federal jurisdiction.

01:27:01.360 This is under provincial and this is how, this is how our constitution was formed.

01:27:06.640 And here are some of the limitations and well, to make a change, you need all the premiers to get together and you need a political will.

01:27:13.460 But to get the political will, you need the groundswell of support and, or the voice pushing the premiers to do that.

01:27:20.900 And that only happens with enough conversations, with enough education, with enough civic engagement.

01:27:27.500 And I think if we throw our ball to the court of like, well, we're just waiting for federal to do something.

01:27:33.280 We're forgetting that like the change happens, first of all, like getting your life in order, the best of your ability and, or engaging with your community, with your friends, having these conversations, expanding your circle, getting involved, let it be a CA association.

01:27:50.760 Let it be a, go to these teachers, like any of the school board meetings, there are places we can affect change.

01:27:59.100 And I think some people feel hopeless, but they haven't tried anything.

01:28:05.520 They haven't actually taken any of the steps.

01:28:09.480 And I think there's a lot that can be done.

01:28:12.040 Well, it goes back to this top down approach that, that, that politics always takes, right?

01:28:17.260 People are hopeless because they're like, how am I ever going to influence what's happening in Ottawa or Edmonton?

01:28:22.740 Well, no, not like that, but you got your library board influence things on a local level.

01:28:29.100 And it's not for everybody to go to the big leagues.

01:28:32.000 If I, if I'm going to say that, right, it's not in everybody.

01:28:34.700 It's not for everybody.

01:28:35.640 Not everybody could do that, but everybody can do something.

01:28:38.840 And that's where I agree with Eva, Eva, right?

01:28:41.440 Like she's got, she actually just gave me her book Saturday night.

01:28:47.000 We, yeah, she, I was having, um, uh, supper with her and Chris, I believe.

01:28:52.680 Yeah.

01:28:52.880 That's her fiance.

01:28:54.160 Um, great people.

01:28:57.420 Yeah.

01:28:57.580 Great.

01:28:57.820 Oh, I, yeah, I'm on a board with her.

01:29:00.260 She's, she's great.

01:29:01.000 I haven't read the book yet.

01:29:02.200 I mean, she's like, you got to take, you're going to take it with, you know, take it with

01:29:05.240 to the big house.

01:29:06.100 And it's like, yeah, I don't know if they'll let me take that, but I'm going to try.

01:29:10.200 But, uh, her approach is definitely, her knowledge is more federal focused.

01:29:15.400 Um, but before that it's, um, but before that it's get involved.

01:29:20.780 And I think that's the key message, get involved because I think the biggest negative, the biggest

01:29:27.660 crisis that we face issues aside, it's the apathetic nature of Canadians.

01:29:32.780 And that is what, you know, I, I, I can, we, we, we like to blame the government.

01:29:37.960 The only reason government has been able to do what they've done to us is because of apathy.

01:29:42.180 Right.

01:29:42.580 So we, we can't look very far when it comes to blame.

01:29:45.580 I mean, I can, there's issues and sometimes you can blame that group or this group or those

01:29:50.400 people, you know, they should have done, but it's, we blame ourselves when it comes to

01:29:54.080 this.

01:29:54.240 We've allowed, we've allowed them to get away with what they've done, whatever the

01:29:58.960 issue is, whatever the crisis was.

01:30:00.600 Right.

01:30:02.200 I always say critical mass.

01:30:03.860 Like if people realize the power they had, I mean, we could, we could fix this.

01:30:10.520 We could fix so much in such a short time if they, if they only knew.

01:30:15.260 And I, this brings me back to just the struggle that the majority of this population has, the

01:30:22.340 majority of Canadians are having just to, to survive.

01:30:27.480 And that's unfortunate in that, you know, government, government loves it.

01:30:32.160 I mean, certain governments love it more than others, but we are walking toward a welfare

01:30:35.860 state every day.

01:30:36.640 And if there's one thing that, that, that a welfare state, um, uh, or a big, uh, part of

01:30:43.820 the identity of a welfare state is, is ultimate control, right?

01:30:46.860 Government controls everything.

01:30:47.920 Government controls, you know, you go from breakfast programs in the schools to,

01:30:52.340 uh, political engagement.

01:30:54.920 It's just, it's all controlled from the top down.

01:30:57.280 And that's, that's, uh, that's a scary thought, but it's happening.

01:31:02.020 And, um, especially in this country, it's being challenged in this province.

01:31:06.680 And that's why I think Alberta is that place of hope.

01:31:09.960 Um, some people like to talk about Alberta and they it's doom and gloom.

01:31:15.360 And trust me, there's days where it's doom and gloom here too, but we are still better off

01:31:20.360 than most jurisdictions in this con on this continent in the Western hemisphere.

01:31:24.940 Is there a lot of problems that we've narrowed down and that we have an inside scoop do that

01:31:28.800 everybody outside this province doesn't see?

01:31:30.960 They're like, Oh, we love Daniel Smith.

01:31:32.500 You know, she's the best.

01:31:33.580 Sure.

01:31:33.680 I understand that.

01:31:34.700 But when it comes to the nuts and bolts, we see the issues and we, we still want to

01:31:38.100 refine those details, but it, it, it, we like, it's not right to be that negative that we're

01:31:46.080 on an abyss and we're about to go off a cliff as a province.

01:31:48.900 No, that means that Quebec and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick went off 20 years ago and

01:31:53.480 they haven't, they're still there.

01:31:54.720 Right.

01:31:55.340 There's no, you know, they're sure there's, there's, there's financial difficulties and

01:32:00.860 deficits and, and, and out of control, migration, immigration, those things, they need to be

01:32:07.400 addressed, but they're not, um, uh, existential crises at this point, like, uh, like we see

01:32:14.220 in other parts of the parts of the world.

01:32:15.700 So that's my positive contribution for the day.

01:32:19.980 Hey, that's great.

01:32:21.180 That's a, oh yeah, that's good.

01:32:23.220 And, and, you know, I was going to say we've, you know, this is, we've been at it for about

01:32:26.580 an hour and a half here.

01:32:27.380 So just to be, uh, you know, respectful of your time here, we really appreciate, uh, you

01:32:31.500 know, you taking this time, um, maybe to kind of close her up here.

01:32:34.700 That was a, that was a nice little positive note, but, um, we always like to ask, um, is

01:32:39.680 there something that you think we should have talked about today that we didn't or, or anything

01:32:44.300 that you, that you feel you'd like to, to just put out there in the ether before we, uh,

01:32:48.700 before we wrap her up?

01:32:49.660 Uh, no, I think we've, uh, nothing specific.

01:32:53.800 I think we've talked about a lot, like we've bounced around a bit.

01:32:56.820 We've, we've really drilled down into certain, certain topics.

01:33:00.880 Um, it's, it's been definitely been political in nature, which I mean, that's a common interest

01:33:06.860 here.

01:33:07.820 Um, my biggest thing is, is get engaged.

01:33:11.560 I mean, back to my biggest takeaway from the AGM, it was the, the networking aspect and

01:33:19.560 I'm not like some big social butterfly, but I've, I've, I've, I've been around.

01:33:23.780 I mean, I've, I know people and we've seen you around.

01:33:27.800 Yeah.

01:33:28.360 Right.

01:33:29.240 Connections matter.

01:33:30.460 I mean, I have, uh, uh, I got a pretty big Rolodex, political Rolodex for better or

01:33:36.320 for worse.

01:33:36.720 Some of them probably want to lock me up.

01:33:38.300 I know they do.

01:33:38.940 And others, they, they think I'm some kind of hero.

01:33:41.980 It doesn't matter.

01:33:43.520 None of it matters.

01:33:45.420 If you're not engaged, it all matters.

01:33:48.180 But if you're not engaged, then you're part of the problem and being involved as part of

01:33:55.760 the solution.

01:33:57.280 I'm not a UCPG year leader.

01:33:58.860 I'm a conservative first.

01:33:59.960 I have principles that I, that I was the more morals that I support that I strive, stick

01:34:07.560 to and, and the principles that I, that I strive to, uh, to, to execute in, in public

01:34:14.880 life, but well, or sorry, what, what that's done, it's aligned me with this party at this

01:34:24.240 point.

01:34:24.480 I mean, I, I am a member in good standing of the party.

01:34:27.060 I'm sure there's some that may want to change that and that's fine, but that would, that

01:34:32.340 goes towards the whole group think aspect that I think is a big upcoming issue for even

01:34:37.320 conservatives, right?

01:34:38.760 Critical dissident thought is no longer appreciated.

01:34:41.320 I mean, it's being suppressed even in this party and that's a problem.

01:34:44.780 Um, so get involved, get engaged and make sure your voice is heard.

01:34:51.520 And that doesn't mean being the guy at the microphone.

01:34:53.500 That means you show up, you, you cast your ballot on many of the different, either the

01:35:00.440 nominations, the, the, the local level AGMs, the, I mean, the, some of the committees

01:35:09.560 of policy committees that bring forward these, these, these hundreds of resolutions, governance

01:35:16.040 and policy that, that turn, that, that eventually make their way to the mosh pit that at times

01:35:21.540 do make it into legislation in this province.

01:35:23.400 That, that all started, that started in some office somewhere in some small community, uh,

01:35:33.020 at a board level, not for profit, uh, board level, um, volunteer based board level, board

01:35:39.540 level, uh, uh, meeting where these ideas become something and they worked their way up through

01:35:44.860 the vetting process to the, uh, PBGC and then eventually to an AGM and then possibly, you

01:35:51.540 know, gets tabled in the, in the floor of the legislature someday that, that it's like

01:35:55.720 this massive river that has its headwaters.

01:35:58.740 This is where it started.

01:35:59.640 Just a little trickle.

01:36:01.620 And that might be you, that might be that person.

01:36:03.720 So when you really, when you look at it from, from, you know, um, from the 34,000 view, it

01:36:13.840 can be discouraging at times.

01:36:16.240 How can I make change?

01:36:17.820 When you actually get involved and you start to understand the process, understand how things

01:36:21.960 work and you're dedicated to it.

01:36:24.320 You can become a major change or change maker in said, um, said avenue or something said issue

01:36:36.360 that interests you.

01:36:37.180 Right.

01:36:37.520 So, um, get involved.

01:36:40.360 I mean, be that, be that, be that person that, that puts that idea on paper, advocates for it

01:36:47.840 and turns it into something real.

01:36:49.260 Um, wise words, perfect place to wrap her up.

01:36:53.760 I think.

01:36:55.480 Cool.

01:36:56.140 Well, thanks so much, Marco.

01:36:57.440 We, we really appreciate it.

01:36:58.620 We'll put, uh, we'll put your socials, uh, in the description and, uh, and when we post

01:37:02.920 this out.

01:37:03.280 So, uh, thank you again, very much for your time.

01:37:06.320 We, we do really appreciate you coming on and hearing your perspectives, uh, getting to

01:37:10.980 know you a little bit better and, uh, and I hope we can do it again.

01:37:14.340 Yeah, I, I, I really appreciate, uh, the discussion.

01:37:17.800 It was great.

01:37:18.200 Like I said, once you get into it, it's like, it time flies by, but thanks for having me

01:37:22.220 on and, um, let's, let's stay in touch.

01:37:25.220 You bet.

01:37:25.480 Sweet.

01:37:25.920 Yeah.

01:37:26.200 Thank you.

01:37:26.620 It was a good one.

01:37:27.840 Thanks a lot guys.

01:37:28.960 Have a good night.

01:37:29.360 Cheers.

01:37:29.420 You too.

The Critical Compass Podcast - December 29, 2024

From Town Councillor, to Provincial Political Critic, to the Coutts Blockade w⧸Marco Van Huigenbos

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