Liberals whine about Conservatives opposing plastic straw and bag bans
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
199.27405
Summary
Calgary City Council voted to get rid of a 15 cent surcharge on single-use plastic bags. Left-wing critics are quick to point the finger at conservatives, saying that the left is obsessed with petty things, like banning single use plastic utensils and charging for single use items like ketchup and condiments. Well, guess what? It's not the left that's obsessed with them. It's the right.
Transcript
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In the aftermath of Calgary City Council voting in favor of a motion on an eight to seven margin
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to get rid of the stupid 15 cent surcharge for paper bags at fast food restaurants and additional
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random surcharges to get like ketchup packets and whatnot. There's a lot of leftists going on
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social media claiming that it's petty conservatives who are obsessed with paper straws and plastic bag
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bans when it's the left themselves who have been passing all this environmental nonsense. It doesn't
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do anything. It's just virtue signaling crap that actually just ends up hurting poor people.
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But it's because conservatives want to go back to the former more rational status quo.
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That means that we're obsessed. If we get in the way of what the left wants to do,
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well, you guys are being petty and not focusing on serious issues. Well, who was focused on it in the
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first place? Were the conservatives passing things like demanding that everyone get two paper bags
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every time they go to a fast food restaurant? No, we're just fine with businesses doing what they
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like. But it was the left who said that we can't have plastic straws, that we can't have our free
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paper bags, or we can't even have plastic bags at grocery store chains. We get comments like this,
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and this is frustrating because it's such obvious hypocritical projection. So this guy Dylan on social
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media, I'll get to better examples than this. He says, I'm not going to die on the hill of Calgary's
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disposable law, but I'd sure like to see the amount of energy coming from right leading counselors
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here on literally any issue of importance. It seems like Dylan hasn't actually paid attention
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to the more conservative counselors on city council. They actually do care about other issues like
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trying to reduce property taxes, cut wasteful spending. They're opposing things like the
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ridiculous EV bus program and the bike lane expansion. These people do care about serious
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things, especially crime. They actually care a lot about crime. But as soon as you're a conservative,
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as soon as you touch on an issue that is a little bit more minor, the left goes, oh, I can't believe
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they're taking this so seriously. Why did you guys take it so seriously in the first place? Here's another
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person. Here's Aaron Holland. He says, in a rare moment of transparency, Alberta Premier demonstrates
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how much she sucks because Daniel Smith is celebrating the single-use plastic ban repeal on the federal level
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and the disposables repeal on the council level. Yes, she sucks because she opposes ridiculous laws.
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And I hate this, and I'm going to get to where this connects to the carbon tax. The idea, well,
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it only costs you 15 cents. Well, this only costs you 30 cents. This only costs you an extra dollar.
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Yes, left-wing policies over time will nickel and dime you to death. What happens if you're not living on
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very much money because you might be some poor single parent having to raise a couple of kids?
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Maybe you don't want to have to pay, you know, 15 cents every time you have to go to a fast food
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restaurant for food. Maybe you don't want to have to pay for a reusable bag at the grocery store
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because you forgot yours at home. And even the ones you have at home, you've got to wash them in order
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to keep some level of hygiene, which costs you money, and it burns more energy. It's an incredibly stupid
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idea that just because something's small means that it doesn't matter and that we shouldn't act on it.
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That's how we get books full of regulations that nobody follows because they're ridiculous or
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whenever someone does follow them, it's usually just because of some officious bureaucrat who wants
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to punish like a trunking company because they're transporting beans at half a degree too warm.
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Completely ridiculous. Anyways, we have Stephen Mayer here and he says,
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I'm so often sad because of plastic waste that I see in nature that I find this hard to understand.
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How important are plastic straws to the premier? Why? I don't care, Stephen, that you cried over a plastic
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bag in the woods one time. It's not your duty to ban people from being able to transport their food and
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groceries or liquid to their face in whatever receptacle they want. It actually just shows you're
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petty tyrant who won't let people use basic utensils when they go to a fast food restaurant.
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They're not having backs of ketchup because Stephen Mayer once cried at seeing a discarded can
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in the woods somewhere. I don't care. It's such a petty environmental issue. Just help people to pick
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up their stuff. That's it. Walk around Alberta. I really don't see that much garbage on the streets
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and usually whenever you do, it's a homeless encampment that the left doesn't want to clean
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up. Here's another one. Here's Kim Seaver, a far left Antifa type. I think he's from like Red Deer
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or something or like, I don't know, Claire's home. He said, we have a healthcare crisis. We have a housing
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crisis. We have a drug crisis, but at least we're getting free packets of ketchup. Well, then don't
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pan this crap in the first place. If you ban it, we might have to reverse the ban because we have to get
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rid of stupid legislation, no matter how small it is. And what, what pray tell is Kim Seaver going
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to do about the drug crisis? He wants free drugs being given to addicts on the street. This guy's
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a complete clown. He's the guy who like painted his house rainbow colors because I guess he doesn't
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believe in respecting your neighbors and not having your house become an eyesore to the community.
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But I don't know. I guess that makes me some sort of like bigot or something like that because I
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actually like aesthetic standards. Anyways, but no, again, you guys are the ones who were
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obsessed with it to the point you banned it. And here's the part where it connects back to the
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carbon tax. Here is perpetual contrarian and technicality expert. Mr. Max Fotz is saying,
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Siri, what does projection look like in response to a headline that says conservatives accuse liberals
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of being pathologically obsessed with carbon tax as house returns? Oh, because the conservatives
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are pathologically obsessed with the carbon tax because they want to get rid of it. They should
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just stop talking about, you know, it only costs people, you know, five, 10 cents a gallon at the
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pump or liter. Sorry, I'm talking like an American, but like, it only costs you this much. They're
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obsessed with it. You're, you guys are the ones who keep increasing the carbon tax every single year
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and squeezing people, especially the poor. It's not us being obsessed with it because we want to get rid
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of a stupid law that most Canadians do not like. It's you guys not being able to let go of a law
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that most Canadians have proven to you that they would rather do without. This is a reason why
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everyone's approval rating goes up as a premier when they get rid of their local gas tax. Nobody likes
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the gas tax. Nobody likes excessive taxes on the products and services they need, especially the
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carbon tax is so ridiculous because you are taxing an inelastic good, a good everyone needs. So it
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doesn't matter how much the tax goes up. You're still going to have to pay for it. If I pay, put a
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30% tax on food, I'm not going to get people to eat less food. They might have to buy more poor quality
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food, but it does not actually make the certain, like the number of units of food sold go down.
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That same thing with gas, same thing with home heating. Nobody's just going to turn off the home
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heating and just die in their bedrooms at negative 30 because it costs a lot. People are going to stop
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buying other goods they do not need. And that's the problem with things like the carbon tax and other
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dumb surcharges is it actually affects businesses that have nothing to do with the tax. It's people
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who sell luxury goods, people who have kiosks at the mall, sell clothes, all this books, things that
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people don't exactly need or in any way. That's what a lot of these taxes affect. Gas stations are
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not going to go under because there's the carbon tax. You need gas. And really their business has
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always been the stuff inside the store. The thing is that the carbon tax affects those on the margins,
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businesses on the margins, individuals on the margins. It doesn't matter if you give people a
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rebate, if everything in their lives has gone up in price. Yes, the rebate outpaces the cost of some
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home heating and gasoline for people who get the full benefit of the rebate. But when you actually
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add up all the other things that they need to pay for, it definitely does not benefit them. The
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rebate. It's a very, very tiny drop in the bucket to make up for the fact that government's taking
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hundreds of dollars from you in inflation due to the taxes that they levy. Anyways, completely
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annoying. I hate this crap. And that's why I'm running for office. Shameless plug. I, Wyatt Claypool,
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I'm running for the Calgary Signal Hill conservative party nomination. If you live in Calgary Signal
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Hill, it's this riding right here. These are what the riding boundaries will look like after
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boundaries are redistributed or territories redistributed because Alberta is getting a few
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more seats. If you live in this riding, check out my website in the description below,
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WyattClaypool.com. Go to my website, go to the get a membership links, buy a membership. Really
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helps me out. It's a tight race with a lot of red Tories trying to take over this extremely
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conservative riding. Annoying, but that's just what a lot of suburban politics are like
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in conservative areas. A lot of red Tories who know a lot of people who end up occupying
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conservative ridings that they do not agree with the vast majority of the constituents on
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the issues within. Anyways, that's pretty much it. I also had the Give, Send, Go legal fund
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for the National Telegraph myself there. We were $25,000 deep in defending ourselves from
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a billionaire developer's ridiculous defamation suit. You can read a little bit about that in the
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Give, Send, Go's campaign. If you give us any money, it really helps take the burden of cost
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off of us. Other than that, I'll see you guys in the future with more videos.