Western Standard - Albertans want an independence referendum

00:00:00.000 Good day.

00:00:29.380 welcome to the Cory Morgan show. What's going on today? Boy, it's breaking all over. I'm going to

00:00:35.100 start on a personal rant on something that's broken though. The bloody dryer broke at my house. I'm

00:00:38.940 going to use that as an excuse for my unkempt appearance today. It threw my morning into a

00:00:42.740 loop. You don't see it, but I'm wearing skinny jeans that I probably should have thrown out

00:00:46.060 years ago. And in my scrambling this morning, I didn't bother shaving. Not that I do it that often,

00:00:51.180 but I had a real polite email from somebody a little while ago that was still horrified and

00:00:55.240 couldn't handle it. Said it was too distracting on when I do shows when I'm unshaven and unkempt like

00:00:59.380 that the stubble gets on their nerves kind of bizarre sorry if it bothers you but you know you

00:01:04.260 can always just listen to we have the audio download as well and you don't have to see

00:01:07.580 that half graying beard coming out of my face i got franco uh so yes and also jane's going out

00:01:12.780 appliance shopping today so speaking of budgets pray for hours and let's hope she remains

00:01:17.200 responsible within it i'm sure she will be more so than our federal leaders out in ottawa franco

00:01:21.560 terrizano from the taxpayers federation is going to talk to us about that in a little while and

00:01:25.760 break it down. And man, it's a bad one. All right. Let's talk about the part we can save in Canada

00:01:30.340 and that's Alberta. And it's clear that the question of provincial independence,

00:01:34.840 it has to come to a referendum in Alberta. There's no getting around it anymore.

00:01:38.100 We've got pro-independence groups who've been working for years in preparation for a referendum

00:01:41.700 and now anti-independence activists under disgraced former Redford government MLA Thomas

00:01:47.140 Lukasik have turned in an official petition with over 400,000 signatures demanding a referendum

00:01:53.080 on independence? Well, how can we say no? With people on both sides of the issue calling for

00:01:57.660 a referendum, it only makes sense to schedule one for 2026. Now, Lukasik, also known as Fabio,

00:02:03.600 is claiming now that he really didn't want to invoke a referendum with his petition. So

00:02:07.860 either he's lying or he didn't actually read the application that he himself submitted to begin

00:02:12.440 the petitioning. It expressly calls for a referendum on Alberta's status within Canada.

00:02:17.180 It almost seems as if his actions were actually a data mining exercise for a political move down

00:02:22.900 the road. Who knows? Whatever the motivation might be, though, the referendum ball is rolling.

00:02:28.220 While Lukasik's petition calls for a referendum, it comes from the perspective of asking people to

00:02:32.520 vote for the status quo. It's not a constitutional application, so no matter which way people vote

00:02:37.640 in his referendum, as he phrases it, actually nothing will change. If a referendum is held

00:02:43.000 where nothing could possibly change, no matter how people vote, it isn't a referendum. It's a

00:02:46.520 tax-funded opinion poll. The Alberta government, though, they can remain true to the demands of

00:02:50.940 the referendum proponents by changing the wording of the referendum, so it becomes a true one, a

00:02:56.180 constitutional one that would lead to potentially the independence of Alberta under the Clarity Act.

00:03:01.160 It's not tossing out Lukasik's efforts, it's giving him what he ostensibly wanted, but just in a

00:03:05.520 different framing and where a positive vote would lead to independence. Scheduling a referendum

00:03:10.460 would serve the UCP government well too. The deadline's fast approaching for the demands

00:03:15.700 Premier Smith made of the Kearney government, and so far he's completely ignored him. There's a few

00:03:20.120 indications he's going to make any significant policy changes before her deadline into the

00:03:23.440 Grey Cup. He said he'd kill the emissions cap, but then he added a bunch of caveats to the policy.

00:03:28.180 If Smith lets Carney laugh in her face after these demands, her government's going to be 0.99

00:03:32.200 rendered impotent when it comes to federal incursions and the blockage of Alberta's

00:03:36.080 industries. If she scheduled an independence referendum the day after Grey Cup, though,

00:03:40.020 I think people across the country would sit up and take notice. Support for independence in

00:03:44.040 Alberta might not have hit majority level yet across the province, but the independence faction

00:03:49.300 within the UCP is significant. Those independence advocates are getting impatient and they're going

00:03:54.460 to turn their guns towards the UCP if they don't see some action when it comes to dealing with a

00:03:58.260 federation that treats Alberta poorly. The UCP AGM is approaching in just a few more weeks

00:04:02.600 and there are movements afoot to try and turn the UCP in an overtly sovereignist party. This

00:04:07.860 would be disastrous for the UCP. The best way Smith can take the pressure off from within her 0.99

00:04:12.440 own party is to set an independence referendum date for mid-2026. Independence advocates can

00:04:17.360 then turn their focus and energy into campaigning for the referendum, and the Premier can just say

00:04:21.700 she's letting democracy run its course, which it would be. It'd be a tough path to win an 1.00

00:04:26.180 independence referendum with a clear majority wanting Alberta to leave the Federation. The

00:04:29.820 momentum of public opinion, it is on the side of independence advocates, but there's a ways to go.

00:04:34.600 Depending on the actions of the federal government and how effective the independence campaign is,

00:04:38.040 the tide could turn. But even if only 40% of Albertans chose independence in a referendum

00:04:43.240 next year, it wouldn't be a wasted effort. The country would be put on notice. Alberta is moving

00:04:47.480 towards the tipping point of a successful independence vote, and if changes aren't made,

00:04:51.700 a winning referendum is going to be held within a few years. A referendum campaign will put the

00:04:56.380 Federation and Alberta's role within it into the news scroll for at least six months. Discussions

00:05:01.040 of provincial jurisdiction and federal policies that harm the province are going to dominate

00:05:04.880 punditry, and people can begin to understand that the status quo isn't an option.

00:05:10.440 There's little sense forcing groups to petition further to invoke a referendum on Alberta's independence.

00:05:15.440 Lukasik got the job done. Thank you, Thomas.

00:05:17.900 Now let's put it in the hands of the electorate, but with better phrasing and a binding outcome.

00:05:22.500 Let 2026 be the year of the referendum.

00:05:25.660 That's what I got to start. How's it going, Dave?

00:05:27.580 Not bad. Your stubble is worse than my stubble.

00:05:30.220 Today?

00:05:31.100 Today.

00:05:31.620 I haven't always out-stubbled you.

00:05:34.240 No, I hate shaving.

00:05:35.520 Yeah, I know.

00:05:35.840 I do it once a week, Sunday, and then I'm good for the week.

00:05:39.420 it doesn't grow that quickly i don't have like a five o'clock shadow yeah well it's been a few

00:05:43.180 days since i got around to this i'm just making an excuse i guess if i really wanted to get around to

00:05:47.020 it are dryers expensive probably i mean jane's going for the top of the line uh well she's 1.00

00:05:54.940 talks like carny with the budget it's not a cost it's an investment all right so you get clean

00:06:00.220 clean clothes dry clothes anyway you and derek are fighting hey what are we fighting about this time

00:06:05.740 who's going to be the first to be arrested under the new residential school denialism law true

00:06:11.340 enough i mean you know we could both be charged but i think it would look better if it's just one

00:06:15.900 of us there can only be one yeah and you you've already been charged by one uh indian band

00:06:23.340 that's still crawling its way through the the courts uh i think in a couple of weeks it goes

00:06:27.660 back again and then they're going to schedule a trial date into sometime next year nice yeah

00:06:31.500 Yeah, you got lost to look forward to.

00:06:32.600 Way to waste the court's time.

00:06:34.900 So let's take a quick break from all the numbers and the budget stuff.

00:06:38.660 And our lead story right now is coming out of New York,

00:06:42.320 where there was a Mississauga man who a couple of years ago

00:06:45.500 wanted to blow up Times Square on behalf of ISIS.

00:06:49.420 He got sentenced to 40 years in the slammer.

00:06:51.920 And he's back in the news today because he found an edged weapon

00:06:54.900 and stabbed two prison guards, one in the eye, and he lost his eye.

00:06:59.820 So he pled guilty to that today, and a note was found in his sock that this was an ISIS-inspired attack.

00:07:07.080 So even from within jails now, they're able to launch these attacks.

00:07:12.520 So, okay, back to the budget.

00:07:14.460 Carney is out selling it this morning, how wonderful it is, and everything is good in the world.

00:07:25.500 Tories are dealing with a traitor in their midst.

00:07:27.860 uh chris d'entremont i'm not sure how to pronounce it i don't know i don't know i was

00:07:33.880 kind of happy if there's going to be floor crossers let's get rid of the ones i can't pronounce well 1.00

00:07:36.860 exactly exactly he represents halifax and the conservatives have lost their mind they're being

00:07:42.080 very nasty to him uh but as you know we were talking about earlier when it's the other way

00:07:47.120 when the shoes on the other foot the conservatives are more than happy to welcome and it has gone

00:07:51.180 both ways and it pisses people off on both sides so you gotta yeah when you're yelling at somebody

00:07:56.080 today remember the double standard because you're gonna you're gonna uh do it the same thing uh

00:08:03.120 other budget news the two billion dollar uh tree planting uh plan from uh miss mckenna and mr

00:08:10.160 trudeau is being officially cancelled uh they only spent a quarter billion dollars of it uh on it uh

00:08:16.400 much so they saved about i think five and a half billion from what the uh the initial cost was

00:08:22.320 is going to be uh in the budget documents they were also talking about reducing temporary uh

00:08:29.840 student admissions by 43 a step in the right direction i think so we'll give them kudos for

00:08:36.640 that and the good news for you they're dropping the luxury tax oh so you can now after you jane

00:08:42.640 has bought the uh the dryer yes you can go out and buy a yacht well that's great i mean yeah with my

00:08:49.760 gold-plated uh western center's salary i mean i'll just split between that and my lamborghini

00:08:54.240 absolutely and your your private jet to fly down to your fifth whale in the arizona desert that's

00:08:59.840 right so uh that's what we got now just breaking as i walked in uh 96 of uh sorry 98 of uh alberta

00:09:08.960 nurses in the alberta union of public employees these are mainly like lpns and and stuff like

00:09:14.240 that's 16 000 of them 98 in favor of going on strike so so we just got the teachers all settled

00:09:21.360 and now it looks like uh the nurses are coming well that's why we need that right to work

00:09:25.040 legislation that i've been jumping on in my view anyways oh so you you sent our young intrepid uh

00:09:30.080 reporter leah out under the the wild streets of calgary the uh the police chief uh katie mcclellan

00:09:38.080 came out today and said enough is enough uh she says downtown crime is is rising it's not just a

00:09:45.760 it's not just a perception it's a reality uh so they sent out dozens of cops and horsebacks and

00:09:53.360 cops on horseback and all sorts of stuff uh to you know just do a little sweep through the

00:09:58.320 downtown core and see what's going on pick up the ne'er-do-wells and uh or leah was leah 0.76

00:10:04.320 much it was along for the ride she's got video and and photos and uh we'll be getting that up

00:10:09.200 this afternoon right on well it's good to get them out for some fresh air i mean we're not

00:10:13.120 it is it is get them out on the streets where they belong cool all right well thanks so let

00:10:18.240 you back to your desk to cover all this mess going on today and uh we'll talk after the show

00:10:22.320 thank you sir right on thanks that is our news editor dave naylor for you guys who didn't already

00:10:27.200 know and uh yes he's out shaving me this week the reason dave is managing so many reporters and so

00:10:32.480 so many stories is because you guys have subscribed to this.

00:10:35.020 I'd like to remind you, get on there, guys,

00:10:36.680 westernstandard.news slash membership.

00:10:39.280 $10 a month, $100 for a year.

00:10:42.100 It keeps us independent, keeps us accountable to you.

00:10:44.220 Speaking of accountable, I want to talk about floor crossings

00:10:47.100 and things like that.

00:10:48.000 Well, you don't like what we're doing?

00:10:49.580 Just cancel your, and I'm not suggesting you do,

00:10:52.200 cancel your subscription, though,

00:10:53.420 if you really, really feel we're beyond the pale.

00:10:55.540 That's something I get, you know, feedback from people.

00:10:56.920 I don't like this columnist or I don't like that reporter.

00:10:59.580 Okay, that's fine.

00:11:00.840 you know keep in mind there's a bunch of us here you don't have to like all of us it's easy just

00:11:04.440 to click on the ones you prefer over others i just you know we get some of those emails now and then

00:11:09.560 when i've said something to annoy people i know it's so rare when that happens but

00:11:13.000 we get the emails and that's it get rid of morgan or i'm canceling my subscription unfortunately it

00:11:17.560 led to a cancellation of a subscription but being serious folks i really appreciate those of you who

00:11:22.520 have subscribed and who are tuning in it really is important to us to keep funding independent media

00:11:28.200 so we can stay independent media and cover all these things.

00:11:31.660 So let's see some of these things.

00:11:33.780 Talking about that independence vote, somebody saying, you know, why not have it in January?

00:11:37.840 Well, you know, if it's going to happen, it's got to take a little more time.

00:11:42.080 Again, I think some people are a little too optimistic about the chances of an independence vote actually winning in Alberta at this point.

00:11:48.800 If it's going to happen, it's going to be a big deal.

00:11:51.480 It's got to be done right, and it's going to take some months.

00:11:54.500 So if it's going to be scheduled, it should be scheduled well into 2026.

00:11:59.200 That said, I can't think of a better time to call for scheduling it

00:12:02.820 and opening that discussion than the day after Grey Cup.

00:12:05.580 I mean, what is Premier Smith going to say?

00:12:07.520 She laid out some very solid demands with a big open-ended or else at the end of it. 0.93

00:12:12.840 And Kearney has ignored every one of those demands.

00:12:16.880 So, well, I think, you know, throw it to the people.

00:12:20.000 What an opportune time to do it.

00:12:21.840 We don't have a team in the Grey Cup this year anyways.

00:12:25.540 I don't know, maybe Ebertun still can.

00:12:26.740 And I don't follow CFL all that closely.

00:12:29.720 All right.

00:12:30.100 But, yeah, talking about, and I see somebody else saying Matt Jenneru might be crossing the floor from the Conservatives as well.

00:12:35.180 You know, some people are getting all wound up at me on X.

00:12:38.900 That's nothing new.

00:12:39.880 But I'm talking about floor crossings.

00:12:42.120 Look, guys, it's part of the system.

00:12:44.740 It's part of the system.

00:12:46.220 If you want to look at your political history enough, Churchill managed to pull it off both ways.

00:12:51.680 Most floor crossers flare out. 1.00

00:12:54.260 I mean, they have ticked off their supporters, they have annoyed the people who elected them to be with a particular party, and they get wiped out in the next election.

00:13:02.440 Or they don't even run because they know they're going to be wiped out in the next election.

00:13:06.300 When Premier Smith did her ill-fated floor crossing in 2014 in Alberta, and I was on the provincial executive with the Wildrose, rest assured, I was as furious as anybody could be over that.

00:13:17.160 There were 11 Wildrose MLAs crossed.

00:13:20.260 There was Danielle and eight of them when she did it, 0.99

00:13:23.940 but there were actually two others that crossed prior to that to the PCs.

00:13:27.240 Not a single one of them had their seat within a year of that.

00:13:31.360 Think about that.

00:13:32.400 They all got annihilated.

00:13:34.160 It was either losing local nominations or losing in the general election

00:13:37.980 or heading for the hills because they realized it.

00:13:41.000 But then on the other side of the coin,

00:13:43.140 they got some conservatives, people talking about BC.

00:13:45.020 How did the BC Conservative Party get its roots?

00:13:47.480 How did it get started?

00:13:48.280 Well, actually, it was because floor crossers came from the BC United Party 1.00

00:13:50.940 who were tired of Kevin Falcon and crossed to the Conservatives

00:13:54.920 to give them a base to begin with and start.

00:13:57.120 Well, Conservatives, a lot of them celebrated that.

00:13:59.780 I'm going to say we've got to drop a bit of the double standard.

00:14:01.960 The system's imperfect, absolutely.

00:14:04.080 And I can understand why people are furious.

00:14:06.460 They supported a Conservative Party member,

00:14:08.200 and that party member less than a year later crossed.

00:14:11.460 But let's just stick to one standard, folks.

00:14:14.140 It's enough.

00:14:14.780 You want to change the entire system? Well, we'll talk more about that independence thing I'm talking about. Or at the very least, get some recall legislation federally if you really wanted to see that. So if the floor crosser really did infuriate their base that much, give the electors a chance to initiate and trigger a by-election to change it. But otherwise, remember, party leaders are already powerful enough. This is one of the things that can kind of hold them in check.

00:14:39.300 You don't like whipped votes. You don't like them all voting exactly the same way or never

00:14:42.780 speaking for themselves. Well, if you take away the ability to cross the floor, I tell you what,

00:14:46.480 you might as well just get rid of local representation and just elect leaders because

00:14:49.860 they will have no ability to deviate from the party line in any way ever again. And that's

00:14:54.760 not healthy for democracy folks. Even if you're furious with what that Chris, uh, unpronounceable

00:14:59.200 French guy did, uh, the other day. All right. I'm not going to bother learning his name because I

00:15:03.820 don't expect to speak too much more about him. Franco Terrazzano. I remember he corrected me

00:15:07.900 because I shorted him on zeds in his name before he could be a little uh pedantic when it comes to

00:15:12.680 that but I understand he's with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation as I said to Dave this is

00:15:16.720 his Super Bowl this is budget time and boy has he ever got a lot to talk about on that so let's

00:15:21.100 bring him on and break some of that down how's it going Franco hey Corey great to be on the show

00:15:25.820 with you man oh always great to have you on and I mean a perfect timing of course after the budget

00:15:30.820 uh well where do we begin is it pretty much what you expected oh it's worse it's worse I mean look

00:15:37.520 it's a debt disaster, right? The debt is spiraling out of control because spending is spiraling out

00:15:42.920 of control. And I mean, Corey, like, welcome to Canada, man. Every single dollar you're paying

00:15:48.200 in federal sales tax is now going to pay interest charges on the debt. And look, Ottawa, we have a

00:15:53.780 problem or more precisely, there's two problems. Number one is the debt, massive debt crunch that

00:15:59.100 we're in. But you know what might be even a bigger problem is that it seems like nobody within the

00:16:04.940 liberal governing party is taking the first problem serious. It's almost like nobody is

00:16:10.860 acting with any sense of urgency here. Meanwhile, the fire is starting to spread and they got to

00:16:16.920 put it out before it gets real, real bad. Well, yeah, I mean, part of, you know, the liberals

00:16:21.980 of the 90s are long gone when they balance the budget. It's something that kind of allowing the

00:16:26.080 current ones to skate as low interest rates in the 90s. People could kind of see how badly this

00:16:30.660 is costing them. What I like about you guys, though, is you break things down and you put

00:16:34.500 into terms we can understand like i believe the deficit alone adds up to almost two thousand

00:16:40.020 dollars for each for every man woman and child in the country if you had a household of four i think

00:16:44.660 it's about seventy six hundred dollars you're taking on his debt just this year i mean this is

00:16:50.020 big well look at the debt interest charges i mentioned now that every dollar in federal sales

00:16:54.660 tax is just going to pay interest on the debt let's break it down one other way uh you know

00:16:59.140 interest charges are costing each canadian more than a thousand bucks this year right that's a

00:17:04.740 thousand bucks that the government has taken from each canadian not to uh build a hospital not to

00:17:11.460 improve education no no no not even to pay down the debt right the government has taken a thousand

00:17:16.180 bucks from each canadian just to pay interest on the debt yeah and i mean interest is just money

00:17:23.620 flush so uh you know he's trying to play both sides of the fence he said oh this is this is

00:17:28.420 investment it's not spending oh and we made some cuts so this is actually an austerity budget

00:17:33.220 i don't know how you can expand spending that much and use the word austerity without throwing

00:17:36.580 up a little or something but what should be cut well look we need austerity for the government

00:17:43.140 right you heard carney go on about sacrifice how about politicians and government bureaucrats

00:17:49.060 sacrifice for a change and like austerity huh are you kidding me the carney government is spending

00:17:54.180 $581 billion this year. Corey, does that sound like austerity to you? $581 billion in spending?

00:18:02.440 You know, everyone knows that Trudeau was reckless, that he wasted money like crazy,

00:18:07.760 that we had a decade of out-of-control spending. Well, Carney this year is going to spend $38

00:18:13.240 billion more than the government did last year. Does that sound like austerity to you, Corey?

00:18:19.460 And I'll get to where we got to cut in a second, but let me just point out one more thing,

00:18:23.420 because you're right. Carney is trying to play it both ways here, right? In his budget, he said,

00:18:29.140 oh, don't worry, folks, we're going to find a bunch of savings. Well, you got to check the

00:18:33.400 fine print. Guess when all those savings magically are going to occur in future years, right? It's

00:18:39.900 like the government is always saying it's going to go on a diet Monday and then Monday never comes.

00:18:44.580 The same thing happened during the Trudeau era. Oh, we'll run some deficits, balance the budget

00:18:49.520 in four years that never happened oh we'll find 15 billion dollars in savings over a handful of

00:18:55.080 years that never happened right so there are no savings this year in the budget all you see is

00:19:00.660 spending going up by billions of dollars every single year yeah they just keep kicking the can

00:19:06.420 down the road i mean a promise to cut spendings isn't to cut to to any spending are there any of

00:19:12.140 these initiatives i guess i'll try to start on the other side of the coin though anything you

00:19:15.100 see that it's a positive is there something good they've done i mean there's got to be something

00:19:18.400 in there oh i didn't know this was going to be a gotcha interview cory toughest question of the

00:19:24.340 day well there's hundreds of pages i mean they've got to be something you know uh two ply tissue in

00:19:28.820 the parliamentary washroom or something yeah look there there is like a couple things here right so

00:19:33.840 um look uh you remember the luxury tax that the trudeau government brought in which is really

00:19:39.080 just a tax on blue collar workers who build boats and airplanes uh so it looks like the government

00:19:43.880 is going to be cutting that. So that's some good news. There's some changes on how businesses can

00:19:49.780 calculate their expensing, right? So that's some decent news there. It looks like the government

00:19:56.200 is also being a little squishy around the production cap on oil and gas, right? It looks

00:20:01.740 like the government might back off on that. So I guess you can call that good news. I mean,

00:20:06.080 that should be scrapped immediately. But you know, there's almost an ultimatum on that one,

00:20:11.200 right? Because Kearney is doubling down on the industrial carbon tax on the hidden carbon tax

00:20:16.000 on Canadian business, right? And look, that's going to be a huge blow to Canada's competitiveness.

00:20:21.360 And what it does is that it pushes Canadian entrepreneurs to cut production here and set

00:20:26.380 up shops south of the border. So, I mean, let's get on then to the low hanging fruit,

00:20:32.120 the reality, where are they blowing money that they really shouldn't be?

00:20:35.300 Where aren't they blowing money? I mean, look, you got the federal government spending 100,000

00:20:39.680 bucks on a study about a grocery cart cory you remember trailer park boys hey with bubbles

00:20:46.560 one of my favorite shows like just give bubbles a couple packs of pepperoni sticks and there you go

00:20:51.360 you got your study about a grocery cart no need to spend six figures or the government spending

00:20:55.920 twenty thousand bucks on a stender about a study about gender politics of peruvian rock music

00:21:02.000 like huh or the government spending eight grand studying the gender identities in online harry 1.00

00:21:08.160 potter fan communities i mean what a waste of money right we all know jk rowling's stance on

00:21:13.760 gender is pretty firm and we also know that grown-up harry potter nerds never get laid

00:21:18.960 so just a complete waste of money but look the biggest thing that the government has to do is

00:21:23.920 that the government should have been firing thousands of bureaucrats yesterday absolutely

00:21:29.840 i mean i i remember again just showing my gray hair and so on but you know the time of the

00:21:34.080 the austerity, the real austerity of the 1990s, one of the first things that Premier Klein did

00:21:39.240 was actually cut the salaries of MLAs, at least as an example. You know, 5% each year we go,

00:21:45.340 we're starting with ourselves, we're taking a bit of a haircut, and now we're going to apply it all

00:21:50.400 the way down the civil service. I mean, that's the only way I think morally you can pull that off.

00:21:54.740 They are really just high-paid civil servants, but I imagine there's no mumbling of reducing

00:21:59.360 compensation for any of our uh members of parliament no when they say we're all in this

00:22:04.300 together they mean it they're not talking about me and you cory they're talking about the gang of

00:22:08.180 300 of them up there on parliament hill and hey i'll just shamelessly plug my column that i wrote

00:22:13.500 for you guys at the western standard it was published this week right and it kind of goes

00:22:18.240 through this historical uh point that you know all the politicians in the modern era all of them

00:22:24.560 who were successful in reigning in the deficit, they all did one thing first, showed leadership

00:22:29.420 by cutting their own pay, right? You have Harper following the 08-09 crisis. Well, he froze MP pay

00:22:37.720 for a couple of years. They reformed the pensions to make them a little bit more affordable for

00:22:41.640 taxpayers. What about the 90s, right? You saw the 90s federally, where in the early 90s, there was

00:22:47.720 pay cuts for ministers and the prime minister until they balanced the budget. Or, you know,

00:22:52.980 you mentioned Klein, the 5% pay cut for politicians. There's also a 5% pay cut for

00:22:57.480 bureaucrats. But this story goes on and on and on. Like if you want to make the necessary cuts to

00:23:04.220 the bureaucracy, politicians got to show leadership themselves and cut their own pay. And you know,

00:23:09.180 Corey, we are always criticizing the government, but I'll say I haven't heard even a single member

00:23:15.380 of parliament from an opposition party forcefully push for members of parliament to take a pay cut.

00:23:21.420 i haven't heard it so you already took a shot at those poor adult harry potter fans and their

00:23:27.260 lack of sexual gratification but there's other nerds out there and those are economists and

00:23:31.500 people who look at that broader picture maybe we should dig a little deeper into the nerdy

00:23:35.340 end of this though the bigger part how does this affect our economy when we're looking at inflation

00:23:40.620 when we're looking at devaluation of currency uh massive government spending has longer term

00:23:45.500 consequences than just what we see on our tax bill oh yeah there's three ways okay corey hold

00:23:50.860 me accountable to it three ways so number one uh you get worse and worse services even though the

00:23:56.380 federal government takes more and more money right like you're you're looking at what interest

00:24:00.540 charges making up about what 56 billion dollars this year uh well by uh 2029 interest charges on

00:24:07.340 the debt are gonna blow a 76 billion dollar hole in the budget right so even though the government

00:24:13.180 is taking more money from canadians uh less and less dollars can then be allocated towards other

00:24:18.540 services and like look no further of a prime example of this to saskatchewan in the 1990s

00:24:24.240 where you had an ndp government there close what dozens of hospitals across that prairie province

00:24:30.000 but number two uh it's it's also a hit to our economy right like ask business investors they

00:24:36.220 see these massive deficits and they worry about tax increases tomorrow right so that discourages

00:24:42.020 businesses from setting up shop here in canada so the third one too is is just inflation and

00:24:48.460 And we really saw that during the pandemic as the Bank of Canada printed up hundreds

00:24:53.300 of billions of dollars out of thin air financing Ottawa's deficits, right?

00:24:57.900 Leading to a 40-year high inflation.

00:25:00.540 So those are the three ways that this massive borrowing problem impacts us.

00:25:05.920 Worse services as debt interest charges eat up more of the budget.

00:25:09.040 A worse economy as investors don't want to invest in Canada because of potential future

00:25:14.840 tax sites.

00:25:15.440 and third the worst tax of them all the inflation tax well i thought mccarty was supposed to be a

00:25:21.660 genius when it came to uh you know macroeconomics and some of those things he wants to make

00:25:25.240 canada the destination for self-sustained you know industry and investment but i mean anybody

00:25:30.500 i think in their first year of economics should know well to do that you've got to cut the

00:25:35.100 regulation you've got to cut the taxes you've got to create the business environment to draw

00:25:39.500 these industries in and he's doing the very opposite well there's only one thing i'll quibble

00:25:43.980 with you there, Corey, is I think you're giving the taxpayer funded universities too much credit.

00:25:49.560 I think that's a little bit, I think that's a little quibble, but Hey, look, um, you know,

00:25:54.440 we're hearing the government talk about investment, investment, investment, investment. I mean,

00:25:57.680 it's just more spending, it's more debt. And, and look like this is a continuation of the Trudeau

00:26:02.160 era. It is like, remember it was under Trudeau where they called investments, which was really

00:26:08.340 just corporate welfare, the billions and billions of dollars to multinational corporations. So they

00:26:13.680 can build battery plants right like folks we just saw this failed experiment play out in real time

00:26:20.320 over the last 10 years where the government tried to borrow its way to prosperity and how did that

00:26:26.320 work massive inflation and a stagnating canadian economy right we just we just saw this social

00:26:32.960 experiment fail over the last 10 years so what do you think is going to happen over the next 10

00:26:37.440 years if the government continues this trudeau era debt field spending spree well it's unfortunate

00:26:43.200 and it's pretty bleak, but what do you think the chances are that there'll be any amendments or

00:26:46.740 changes? I mean, the budget hasn't passed yet. Do you think there's a chance some of this could be

00:26:51.500 fixed up a little bit? Well, Corey, I don't know. I don't know this year. I really don't know.

00:26:56.600 But you know, if there is a glimmer of hope, it takes me back to like 1994. Because everyone

00:27:02.160 remembers when Martin and Kretchen, they ended up balancing the budget in three years. But that

00:27:07.080 started in the 1995 budget, right? The 1994 budget was kind of more of the same that you saw from

00:27:12.680 the previous governments over the last couple decades. So there is hope, but it's really going

00:27:18.580 to take pressure both from Canadians to be like, yo, this is enough. We can't just keep borrowing

00:27:24.120 like this forever. But it's also going to take backbone from the opposition parties, right? And

00:27:29.360 to give them some credit, the conservatives have been pretty good calling for some spending cuts,

00:27:33.760 calling for a lower deficit, but they're going to have to go harder. They're going to have to

00:27:38.040 make the case that the government is wrong and that what we need at this time are legitimate

00:27:44.080 and serious spending cuts yeah well and the government theoretically could fall on this

00:27:50.180 budget but it looks like they're kind of getting the pieces in place getting a floor cross or we

00:27:54.720 know elizabeth may you know for a bottle of gin she'll vote however she you know is told 0.96

00:27:58.300 uh they'll probably get it over the line but do you think there's a chance maybe enough members

00:28:04.500 of parliament would make a stand i mean i don't see it i suspect some of the conservatives will

00:28:08.500 get the flu that day if it looked that way because they're not ready for an election either

00:28:12.180 but maybe there'd be something to put some pressure on well with the floor crossing last

00:28:16.260 night what would the government only needs what two votes now is that right and and there are

00:28:20.340 some rumors swirling i mean ottawa's national pastime is uh rumors about the next possible

00:28:25.620 election so i don't really i i take it with a grain of salt right but i mean at this point

00:28:30.180 of time i think the way the math works out is that the government only needs either two votes

00:28:35.060 two extra floor crossers or two people to not vote right so i mean i you know i don't want 0.99

00:28:41.940 to place any bets but uh it's sure looking like all they need is is two things to happen

00:28:47.540 and they'll get the budget passed yeah well we still always hope for the best i mean i appreciate

00:28:52.420 what you guys do though you you break it down in lay terms so i said that we need the pressure to

00:28:57.140 come up from citizens to go to their politicians to change those things within there and you guys

00:29:01.700 at the taxpayers federation do an excellent job of that with your column and other stuff but i've

00:29:06.180 been pumping your tires enough but still before i let you go where could people find all that good

00:29:11.620 stuff and how can they support you well hey the best way uh to to find our stuff and to support

00:29:16.980 us is at taxpayer.com taxpayer.com you can also just follow us on every social media just type

00:29:23.140 been canadian taxpayers federation uh you can follow me directly on x i'm at franco underscore

00:29:28.320 nomics but the best place to follow us is at taxpayer.com excellent well thanks again for

00:29:33.680 coming on franco i know you got a whole whack to do during budget week so uh looking forward to

00:29:37.620 seeing more of your work coming out there and uh talking to you again on the show soon yeah that'd

00:29:42.200 be great cory thanks so much for having me on man great thank you franco all right guys yeah just

00:29:47.480 one more time that's franco teresano you can get the all the good stuff at taxpayer.com because i

00:29:52.280 mean, I know a lot of it can make the eyes glaze over. I mean, that's what these guys got to do.

00:29:55.820 They put the budget documents out and they're huge, they're thick, they're boring. These guys

00:30:00.100 will distill it down so you can see and have that apply to you. I'm going to paraphrase and break it

00:30:06.620 terribly, you know, something along the lines, but like people can understand. That's why, you know,

00:30:10.780 the $16 orange juice, you know, drove everybody crazy years ago, yet they kind of shrug off a

00:30:15.820 billion because billions don't register in the average citizen's mind. It doesn't, it's not in

00:30:20.380 there. We don't deal in terms like that. And we need to have it, you know, as I said, distilled,

00:30:26.780 broken down and in ways that just make more sense to us. And that's what those guys do. That's what

00:30:30.600 I like to think I do to a little bit of a degree. And what we need more of being done by our elected

00:30:35.460 officials, though, they're supposed to know better, they're supposed to do better. And yeah,

00:30:39.940 we're not seeing much of that. That's why I sound a little defeatist sometimes when I go on about

00:30:44.140 independence minded things. Let's see some of the comments there, Kenzie cracking saying,

00:30:47.680 hey don't have your show on during the same time as question period thanks well I don't think they

00:30:53.160 should have question period on at the same time as my show how about that but uh you know I'm on 0.53

00:30:57.820 every Wednesday at this exact same time all year round those clowns in parliament only sit for

00:31:02.560 so many days a year I know uh it's frustrating that so there's a little bit of overlap but keep 0.71

00:31:07.480 in mind question period is mostly just an exchange of insults they rarely ever actually answer

00:31:13.020 anything. And if any member knocks one truly out of the park, which I enjoy watching as much as the

00:31:18.180 next person, you know that the YouTube clips will be up there to be seen, but here, here you get it

00:31:22.160 live guys. You get the interaction. You send me the question and often though, not always, I'll

00:31:26.560 give an answer on it. Uh, this, my perspective saying supposedly there'll be two more crossing

00:31:31.040 over. There should be by-elections, not crossover into that party status. Yeah. So, uh, you know,

00:31:36.660 that's what, uh, Franco was saying as well as endless speculation, political, uh, intrigue,

00:31:41.480 things that go on, floor crossings back and forth. We won't be able to force by-elections

00:31:46.780 without changing the entire system. And as I said before, you got to remember, you're really going

00:31:52.620 to give a heck of a lot of power to those leaders and they already have way too much

00:31:55.320 if you take away that ability to cross the floor. I don't like what they're doing. I'm not saying

00:31:59.800 it. I'm not defending the floor crossers. I'm defending the ability for there to be floor 0.98

00:32:05.200 crossers. This, I, you know, we're not going to get an election. I mean, I won't, I'll never say 0.97

00:32:11.820 100%, not in Canada's system and the way things go, but the odds of an election coming over this

00:32:17.320 budget are very, very slim. The NDP don't even have a leader yet. They're broke. In fact,

00:32:23.020 they're grossly in debt. This is a huge problem for them. They don't want to go into an election

00:32:28.880 right now. Elizabeth May is clinging to the last vestiges of her best job she'll ever have her

00:32:33.740 whole life. She will go whatever way it is to keep that job hanging in there as long as possible. 1.00

00:32:38.880 And the conservatives are always looking at the numbers. If you want to know one of the number

00:32:42.700 one things political parties spend money on, having worked within them, polling. They're

00:32:48.460 always polling. They're constantly polling. And if they don't see a good surge, something that's

00:32:54.280 going to really pull them over the finish line, they're not going to trigger an election. And

00:32:59.540 things aren't looking fantastic for the conservatives right now. So as I said, even if

00:33:03.400 they didn't get the floor crossers to come over to make this happen what I forget what they call 1.00

00:33:10.100 it you know often the parliamentary flu but a few conservative members will suddenly take sick

00:33:15.020 on the day of the budget vote and the budget will pass so they will none of them will vote for the

00:33:19.240 budget but enough will be there that the budget will manage to pass. I stand to be proven wrong

00:33:25.540 on that within a couple of weeks but I don't think we should be dusting off the old election

00:33:30.600 signs federally quite yet. Though who knows? It's a crazy, crazy world. Jordan saying, I don't

00:33:37.940 consider Parliament to be an effective representation for me. It's rigged and Alberta will never get a

00:33:41.500 fair deal with the Confederation. Well, I kind of agree with that. That's where I talk about the

00:33:45.580 independence referendums and things that would be the catalyst to either tearing down and rebuilding

00:33:50.060 the entire Canadian system, or at least tearing down and rebuilding a good chunk of it over here

00:33:54.100 because I don't know if we can save the entire thing. CB fixes all says, how much did he pay

00:34:00.760 the trader to cross the floor to the dark side? Well, I doubt there was any direct payment,

00:34:04.500 but MPs love being in government because when you're in government, it's not direct payment,

00:34:10.180 but what you will get is parliamentary secretary positions, if not a cabinet position, right? You

00:34:15.120 know, there will be things offered and that's a good chunk of extra change and extra allowances

00:34:19.240 and extra staff. You also get onto a whole track of committees. Not nearly enough people talk about

00:34:24.380 that, but you get onto all those committees, you get paid for all of those, even if they don't sit

00:34:28.520 a heck of a lot, nice extra money into the pocket. Uh, and of course the people just seem to prefer

00:34:34.900 on the ground to have a government member in office, depending on the government. Uh, so we'll

00:34:39.680 see what happens. It's going to be interesting. Uh, you know, getting out of the budget things,

00:34:43.920 getting out of the economics and, uh, and people who just don't pay enough attention to it. 0.60

00:34:49.240 uh hayek one of my favorite economists so they're talking about dorks i'm a dork i won't deny it

00:34:55.880 one of my favorite quotes from him was it if socialists understood economics

00:35:00.840 they wouldn't be socialists it really is you've got to have a mental disconnect to embrace

00:35:06.680 socialism and people just just blank that out and somehow keep supporting a system that is a proven

00:35:13.720 failure over and over and over and over again. And yes, socialism is just communism light, guys.

00:35:20.320 It's just a matter of degree. And when we see what happened in New York, New York, the financial

00:35:27.000 hub of the Western world, massive city, has elected a socialist lunatic. He is, I mean, 0.97

00:35:36.580 he wants to nationalize grocery stores. He wants to nationalize rentals. You know,

00:35:41.860 it's going to make things so brutally bad there. And he's, of course, he's going to do it by taxing

00:35:48.280 the rich. No, the rich will leave. They already are. They're fleeing. As I was saying, there is

00:35:54.460 no iron curtain. You can't do it like East and West Berlin. So the Capitol, the skilled, the

00:35:59.600 ambitious, and it's already been happening. You look at the population balances in the United

00:36:03.960 States, the interstate movement of people. And Texas is growing. Tennessee is growing. Arizona's

00:36:12.120 growing. Nevada's growing. You know what's shrinking? New York and California. Florida's

00:36:17.480 growing. Because the people with the money, the brains, the ambition, and realizing the ugliness

00:36:23.120 of socialism, whether it's under Newsom or this nutcase in New York, or saying, I'm getting the

00:36:28.540 hell out of there. But you see, this leads to a self-perpetuating problem, because what do you

00:36:31.640 leave behind. The welfare bums, the entitled, the unproductive. Then your budget gets worse and the

00:36:37.940 socialists in charge try to drain more from the productive. Then they drive the productive out

00:36:41.780 more. Guess what? We got into that cycle that collapses socialism every time. And New York,

00:36:46.520 of all cities, such a massive city, is going to run down that experiment.

00:36:53.440 I say, well, fine, go for it. I use the analogy in the newsroom I was talking to Leah there

00:36:58.280 saying look at it like the old school way of trying to get a kid off of cigarettes if you

00:37:03.160 caught them smoking you know make them smoke a hundred of them and get them real sick and green

00:37:07.100 and everything and understand how bad it is for you and then perhaps they'll wisen up and not

00:37:13.800 take it up well let's let them have their taste of socialism go ahead drink up consume it enjoy it

00:37:20.760 have the fruits of that enjoy those bread lines because you think that government control of 1.00

00:37:26.300 stores hasn't already been tried, you morons. Enjoy the block housing in the ghettos because 1.00

00:37:33.140 you think government control of housing hasn't been tried, you guys? And think of all the waiting

00:37:38.440 lists to get onto everything to get anything because socialized commodities are rationed

00:37:45.200 commodities. We're seeing that in Canada when we've given a socialized monopoly to health care.

00:37:49.800 It's great. Nobody ever has to pay out of the pocket for health care. The problem is you're

00:37:54.040 prone to dying before you can actually get in to access it, because we are running out of it.

00:38:00.120 But it's a good point of principle, isn't it? Well, this is what gets applied everywhere. Plus,

00:38:05.100 government can't do anything well, ever. Dave brought that up in the news update.

00:38:11.920 But that was the big two billion trees. You know, this should have been a very simple

00:38:17.660 program, not one that the government should have needed to get into in the first place.

00:38:21.360 But if the government was going to take something on, a nice green thing, that's why for our simplistic Prime Minister of Trudeau, he came up with this one.

00:38:29.020 They were going to plant 2 billion trees, him and Climate Barbie, and they put that out there.

00:38:36.340 Six years later, and 50 full-time employees blowing $268 million.

00:38:45.360 How much do those 50 employees take each anyway? 0.87

00:38:48.180 But they didn't even come close to planting 2 billion trees. How hard is it? There's an area

00:38:54.780 that has no trees. Take a tree, dig a little hole, stuff the tree in the hole. Holy cow, you did it.

00:39:03.400 And the government couldn't do it. This was too complicated for them. This was too difficult

00:39:08.720 a program for them to manage efficiently to even plant bloody trees across the country.

00:39:14.960 Now think of the things people are asking government to do.

00:39:17.340 Do you really want government to take over providing lunches to kids in schools?

00:39:21.360 Because that's where the federal government's jumped into now.

00:39:23.960 I think one of the best examples you see of that is somebody saying, you know, if government

00:39:26.700 took over cooking or something like that, it shows if government's made breakfast, you

00:39:29.540 know, here's a frying pan with an egg cracked over on the side on the stove and some toast

00:39:34.100 burning on an element somewhere else.

00:39:35.700 Guys, the government can't do anything well, and it won't, but it'll do it in a costly

00:39:39.400 way, in an intrusive way.

00:39:40.820 likewise uh you know government daycare same thing what's happening now with the daycare

00:39:47.000 the government got into daycare oh we all got free daycare it's going to have 100 return on

00:39:50.500 everything because all the women will go out working and everybody pay taxes we'll all be 1.00

00:39:53.480 happy little families oh there's no spaces yeah socialized services are rationed services we don't

00:40:01.760 have enough of them people have to have an expense they have to pay out of pocket and i hate to point

00:40:06.620 this out. But abuse of socialized systems is rampant. It always is. And not every person who

00:40:12.120 would take advantage of a socialized daycare system is a hardworking single parent who just

00:40:17.000 wants to get out there and contribute. A lot of them. I'm going to say it. It's true. I lived in

00:40:21.800 forest lawn for some years. I saw this. There's some lazy people out there. There's some entitled

00:40:27.180 people out there. And the more you give them, the more they're going to pull. It's not to say we

00:40:32.480 shouldn't have any social services, but when you throw them out blindly, people will take advantage

00:40:35.900 of them and there will be waste. So when you try these blanket programs, you just overwhelm the

00:40:42.000 system. And what does that do for the people? Well, then they have to pay out of pocket to try and get

00:40:45.720 better services outside of that. So then the people who really are working, paying for daycare, going

00:40:50.380 to a private daycare outside of the socialized daycare system, end up paying a fortune to get

00:40:54.640 their kids into that. Or, or, or they'll stop working. They'll say, screw it, I'm going to be

00:40:59.920 a stay-at-home parent. Well, where's the, you've just done the opposite of what this system is

00:41:04.660 supposed to do. So this government is going to spend us all into prosperity. They're going to

00:41:10.760 take care of everything. They're going to put our great-great-grandchildren into debt because these

00:41:16.520 are investments. The government doesn't invest in anything it spends, not investments. And they're

00:41:23.640 trying some voodoo economics. Oh, this is different. This is a capital investment over here.

00:41:27.260 Oh, come on, spare me. I can't stand that in provincial projects, budgets too. Well, that was different. That was operating expenses and this is capital. Okay, I kind of understand how they're different areas, but it's still all spending. Do you think we could pick up that capital project and spend it? Or sell it? Who's going to buy an overpass? What are you going to do with it?

00:41:50.920 You know, it's still government spending and we only have so many dollars. So where do we go with

00:41:58.700 this? But we are on a bad track. CB Fixal says the forestry companies do the replanting every year

00:42:05.160 and they don't get a cushy government paycheck. That's right. Private woodlots maintained by

00:42:10.180 people actually do very, very well. We should be logging the crap out of the West. You want to deal 0.95

00:42:15.080 with the pine beetles? You want to deal with drought? You want to deal with standing dead?

00:42:18.800 you want to deal with, you know, the local economy, log like hell, guess what? They grow back,

00:42:26.300 especially if we plant them. And you know what happens if we don't? They burn. We've seen that.

00:42:32.580 We've seen that in spades. Let the private market do what it will. Export that wood. There's

00:42:38.920 developing countries who want it like crazy. Export, of course, all of our raw resources,

00:42:42.400 but we won't because we're this green country, right? The emissions cap. Let's get back to that

00:42:47.420 beauty. So Carney said he's going to get rid of it. There's the bone he tossed to Danielle.

00:42:55.640 So Rob Anderson, our chief of staff talking on X about it. No, not exactly. So they're rejecting

00:43:00.660 that already. It's a promise to get rid of it. If Alberta does this, this, this, this, this,

00:43:05.580 then it's nothing. It's nothing. You aren't getting rid of it. You put conditions on it.

00:43:09.380 If you wanted to get rid of it, you just get rid of it. It's not that hard. And that chills

00:43:13.740 investment because people aren't going to put money in when there's going to be a government

00:43:17.360 imposed cap on them making money later. It's impossible. No investor in their right mind

00:43:21.680 will invest in Alberta's energy projects as long as Carney's got a gun to the head with the

00:43:25.860 emissions cap. This should be enough to go to a referendum alone because we're paying the bloody

00:43:31.420 bills and they're making it harder and harder for us to do it. We don't get a thank you. We just get

00:43:35.360 squeezed harder and our own industries get kicked in the proverbial knackers and stopped from

00:43:39.840 expanding. It's brutal. And here we go. I'll just close off with, you know, other stuff that gets

00:43:48.040 me wound up. But let's look at speaking of the lunatic in New York, and boy, the Jews are in 0.99

00:43:52.040 for a good ride over there, aren't they? But are we much better off over here? The Toronto police 0.99

00:43:56.800 force, the most cowardly force in Canada, and they really have been for a couple of years. These are 0.81

00:44:00.520 the ones that brought donuts and coffee, literally, not even figuratively. I know lefties love to 0.98

00:44:05.040 abuse the word literally. No, I mean literally in that an officer came with donuts and coffee and

00:44:09.660 gave them to Hamas supporters in Toronto who were terrorizing a Jewish community.

00:44:15.200 But what do you expect? This is a news release from the Toronto Police Force yesterday.

00:44:20.620 Suspected hate-motivated mischief to religious property investigation at Bayview Avenue and

00:44:26.000 Fife Shire Road area. Okay, so they're asking for help with this suspected hate-motivated mischief.

00:44:33.480 What it was, was a synagogue had swastikas painted on it and it was vandalized and abused. In Canada,

00:44:39.460 they've been putting bullets through synagogues for a couple of years already. But they don't say 1.00

00:44:43.580 synagogue. They say religious property investing. Who the hell says religious property? Would you 0.97

00:44:49.100 say that about a church? Would you say that about a mosque? Would you say that about a sick temple? 0.99

00:44:53.720 No. But when it's a synagogue, those cowardly creeps on the Toronto Police Force say, 0.99

00:44:59.280 a religious property. You scumbags. Say it like it is because a particular group is getting 1.00

00:45:06.040 targeted. And how do you prevent that if you won't even admit who the group is that's being

00:45:10.400 targeted? You say it's hate motivated. Well, fine. Motivated by who and why? How do you know what

00:45:16.540 it's going to be? It's a religious property. That could be anything. And in particular, that one

00:45:22.260 thing you just won't mention. No Jews, no news. Getting sick of that crap, guys. Free the West. 0.98

00:45:28.520 All right, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in today. Be sure to watch the pipeline tonight

00:45:32.580 to be coming on another panel breaking down more issues subscribe to all of our channels get out

00:45:37.400 there share this stuff keep the western standard flying out there and independent so we can report

00:45:41.980 this to you thank you all very much for tuning in today guys we will see you see you all again

00:45:46.520 next week break down what's happened by then

00:46:02.580 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - November 05, 2025

Albertans want an independence referendum

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