Western Standard - Alberta’s budgetary shame

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:29.980 and welcome to the Cory Morgan Show.

00:00:32.080 I guess it doesn't show as well as I hoped or thought it might

00:00:34.260 in the back camera there, but there's that cold steam coming up

00:00:37.320 because it's bloody winter outside and all foggy again out in Alberta.

00:00:42.400 But then it's going to be, I've heard reports as high as 18 degrees

00:00:45.640 in Calgary on Saturday.

00:00:48.020 So day by day, who knows what's going on out here.

00:00:50.940 I guess we get breaks from the winter, which is better than nothing,

00:00:53.140 but I'm not big on them.

00:00:54.480 You know, a lot of people got on my case for crossing the border

00:00:57.360 into the States for my winter escape down in Arizona.

00:00:59.980 calling me a traitor and all the usual stuff or whatever, or just saying that, you know,

00:01:03.860 you should try out some of the other tropical spots. Well, how's Mexico, Cuba, or the Middle

00:01:08.700 East looking these days for a winter break anyways? I'd say driving down to the desert was

00:01:13.440 probably the safest and best choice I could make. I plan on doing it again this winter.

00:01:17.900 All right. So yeah, we've got some crazy world events going on and things like that, but I'm

00:01:22.280 going to start by talking about things a little more locally. The budget came down last week,

00:01:26.820 provincially in Alberta here. And the UCP government in Alberta, they inadvertently

00:01:31.720 caught a break as energy prices predictably spiked due to the latest war in the Middle East.

00:01:37.460 So for every dollar the world price of oil rises, the provincial government garners nearly 700

00:01:42.700 million in royalties. So if the war in Iran is protracted, it is possible the budgetary deficit

00:01:49.000 of 9 billion announced in Alberta last week could actually turn into a budget surplus by the end of

00:01:54.220 the year. The Alberta government should respond to this by cutting spending. We can't allow a fluke

00:02:00.260 of world oil prices to let the provincial government get off the hook for a deficit that

00:02:04.000 was built primarily due to irresponsible spending. Alberta's debt is going to reach a hundred billion

00:02:10.040 dollars and it should be the shame of politicians and voters alike. If the government wants more 0.94

00:02:14.600 money to play with, then paying down that debt has to be priority number one. It will give them

00:02:19.620 four billion a year in saved interest payments they can spend without having to hike taxes,

00:02:23.940 by a penny. People, including finance minister Nate Horner, have been floating the notion of

00:02:29.120 imposing a sales tax on Albertans. The response from citizens at this concept should be nothing

00:02:33.880 less than outrage. The government doesn't have a revenue problem. How many times do we got to say

00:02:37.840 this? It has a spending problem. If they can't get their spending habits under control, revenue from

00:02:43.660 a sales tax would just be dumped into a growing black hole of spending. Sales taxes, they have a 0.87

00:02:48.660 declining rate of return as they impact the economy with reduced consumer spending. They raise the

00:02:53.040 cost of living. And, you know, tourism might choose to spend their vacation dollars elsewhere.

00:02:57.980 It's not a magical pool of funds to tap into without consequences, as some are trying to frame

00:03:03.160 it. The UCB government raised the education property tax by nearly half a billion dollars.

00:03:08.140 These taxes impact the cost of housing for renters and owners alike. They also hike taxes on rental

00:03:13.080 cars and hotels, which is going to hit our tourism revenue. With massive tax and spending hikes,

00:03:18.780 The government can't pretend to be fiscally conservative. Yes, mass immigration has put 1.00

00:03:23.680 pressure on services in general. The 6% increase in health spending and the whopping 30% increase

00:03:28.340 in education spending addresses that. Most Albertans are okay with increasing spending

00:03:33.440 within reason, at least on core services such as health and education, but that still leaves a lot

00:03:37.520 of fat to be cut. Why is the province increasing spending on art? How much ugly, crappy public art

00:03:42.420 do we need? Why is the cost to paying government employees going up 14% in one year? Why is there 0.92

00:03:50.200 still a massive expensive program to bring fiber optic internet services to isolated rural homes

00:03:54.360 when most of them have already gotten Starlink? They got sick of waiting for the government.

00:03:57.840 The list of things to cut is long when the government finds the will to look for them.

00:04:01.120 Problem is the government isn't looking. They're taking the lazy NDP style approach to issues by

00:04:05.420 raising taxes and spending and that's not what Albertans voted for. Did the spending increases

00:04:10.360 buy any love from the teachers unions or socialized health care activists? Of course not.

00:04:15.260 They panned the budget and they're still doing everything in their power to bring the UCP down.

00:04:19.140 The Alberta Federation of Labor with old Gil McGowan there's planning mass protests after

00:04:23.320 an attempt to bring down the government through recall initiatives. That failed dismally.

00:04:27.620 So why pander to them further? Premier Smith must trust Albertan voters to accept spending

00:04:33.220 restraint. Albertans have voted for conservative governments for decades because they value

00:04:37.780 fiscal conservatism. It was the gross overspending of the Stelmac and Redford governments that brought

00:04:42.780 the progressive conservative dynasty to an end. Smith can rest assured if she doesn't get a handle

00:04:47.620 on spending soon, an alternative will form on her right, and we'll all remember, we do all remember

00:04:52.820 what the consequences of vote splitting are. Look, when Ralph Klein balanced the budget, he didn't

00:04:57.420 wait for better oil prices to do it. He cut spending without apology. Unions and pundits, they went wild

00:05:02.480 at the time. They predicted the demise of the Klein government and protests flourished. Then Klein

00:05:06.720 went to the polls and Albertans rewarded him with a bigger majority government.

00:05:10.360 Klein continued with the austerity governance and union members literally attacked the legislature

00:05:14.680 with protests and they were trying to kick the doors down. After four years of this, Klein was

00:05:18.840 rewarded with a bigger majority. In his last term, Klein started to spend heavily again and it led to

00:05:25.000 reduced support for him. Look, the only thing harder than cutting spending during tough times

00:05:29.220 is cutting spending during good times, but it must be done. Smith must resist the urge to continue

00:05:34.140 tossing money at issues even if the high oil prices flood the government coffers. Alberta

00:05:38.640 doesn't need a larger and more encompassing government. It's hard to maintain the higher

00:05:42.560 ground when complaining about tax and spend attitudes in Ottawa when Edmonton does the same

00:05:46.660 bloody thing. For the sake of the economy and future Albertans, the UCP must remember the C 0.85

00:05:51.840 in their name and become a conservative party and wrestle their spending under control because the

00:05:56.140 2026 budget is nothing less than an embarrassment. That's all I got. How's it going, Dave?

00:06:01.360 it's going good cory how are you oh good good i mean you know apart from the budget yeah well

00:06:06.480 it kind of annoyed me and the war yeah the war is a little distressing as well i uh saw on social

00:06:12.400 media yesterday that your bees are bringing out their dead yes they are yeah they're enjoying the

00:06:17.120 good weather they're out in droves uh and yeah that's what they do they drag all the dead ones

00:06:21.840 out and dump them out in the snow you also see little brown spots all around the yard on the

00:06:26.320 snow too uh which uh you know they call them cleansing fright flights but all it is the bees

00:06:31.280 they won't poop in the hive they'll take it out so so how many bees would be dead over winter i don't

00:06:38.080 know i it's you know they really that's their cycle they really pad it up with you know like

00:06:41.840 fifty thousand bees by the end of fall really getting ready to go into winter and then they

00:06:46.160 cluster and probably be down to maybe fifteen thousand by spring so it's just kind of a cycle

00:06:50.480 and then they they should be starting to lay again now so there you go there you go circle of life

00:06:55.680 Yeah, so I'll open them up and get the hell stung out of me for the first time in spring, probably another few weeks.

00:06:59.940 There you go. So, yeah, let's talk about war, Corey.

00:07:04.500 U.S. and Israel bombing the hell out of Iran.

00:07:10.500 The Ayatollah is dead.

00:07:12.980 They're not picking a, or they haven't picked a new one yet. 0.98

00:07:16.880 All the senior clerics decided stupidly to hold a meeting during daylight hours yesterday in Tehran, 1.00

00:07:23.080 and Israel dropped a bomb on their head so they're all dead. There was a first time since 1.00

00:07:29.480 the Second World War a U.S. sub sank a naval ship, sank an Iranian frigate off the coast of

00:07:36.760 Sri Lanka. So scores of Iranian sailors are dead or treading water or shark food at the moment. So

00:07:45.400 lots uh lots kicking off all over the place uh diplomatic wise uh uh great britain is in a big

00:07:52.920 fight with uh with the us for not helping them uh the uh president uh uh donald trump

00:08:00.360 have badly insulted uh british leader care starmer yesterday by saying he's no winston

00:08:05.640 churchill and he's right there is no winston churchill uh closer to home uh natural resources

00:08:13.000 minister tim hudson said hey this war is good for uh good for us it's good for energy and the quote

00:08:19.640 was we will we see the money yeah well that's a little closer to what i was talking about with

00:08:25.480 the budget okay yeah so world events have brought in uh funds but not really in the nicest way no

00:08:31.560 no uh but he says it's an opportunity to get uh safe reliable canadian energy uh out exporting

00:08:38.680 around the world, and if only there was like a way to do that.

00:08:41.860 I don't know, you know, blimp maybe, fly it out there or something.

00:08:46.080 There was plans at some point back in the day of getting dirigibles up there filled

00:08:50.420 with oil.

00:08:52.900 What else is going on?

00:08:54.320 Oh, we got Mark Carney, it continues his never-ending world tour.

00:08:58.760 He's down in Sydney today, changing his stories about the war. 0.99

00:09:06.540 former Israeli Prime Minister, called Carney stupid today. 0.95

00:09:11.100 And we've got Pierre Polyev in Germany giving a speech in Berlin this afternoon. 0.99

00:09:18.360 We've got a deep dive into that Musqueam Treaty mess that's over in Vancouver. 1.00

00:09:24.860 I would certainly not move into Vancouver at this point.

00:09:28.060 No, I mean, I understand.

00:09:30.800 They say that, oh, this is just a gesture.

00:09:34.100 It's a symbol.

00:09:34.700 Don't worry about your real estate prices.

00:09:36.540 Well, they said that with Richmond, too, and banks refused to refinance, and companies pulled the hell out.

00:09:41.600 I just, I'm sorry, I don't believe them anymore.

00:09:44.580 No, no, and it's not going to be the last one, right?

00:09:47.620 I mean, it's pretty soon they're going to be all over Canada.

00:09:51.520 Well, I would suggest that productive, hard-working British Columbians sell their houses now while they can,

00:09:57.580 come to Alberta, make a good living in the land where it was already all permanently ceded in the treaties.

00:10:03.360 Ah, do we have room, though?

00:10:05.320 Well, if they're hardworking, productive people, yes.

00:10:08.900 And we've got a report going to City Council today that because of the infrastructure repair needs that were ignored by Nenshi and Gondek,

00:10:18.200 we're now facing a $610 million bill to fix up infrastructure.

00:10:24.980 So that'll raise taxes a little bit.

00:10:27.100 Well, yeah, Congress back into the if it's yellow, let it metal zone, isn't it again? 0.91

00:10:30.940 I think so.

00:10:31.620 I think so. Water rationing coming in on Monday.

00:10:35.760 So we're all going to go to your place and shower in the morning?

00:10:38.140 Yeah, I got my own well. I'll charge, you know, a moderate range.

00:10:41.260 Charge?

00:10:42.180 Well, you know, bring some cookies or something.

00:10:44.620 All right, maybe cookies.

00:10:45.820 I noticed Jeremy Farkas has been on the warpath with Premier Smith,

00:10:49.040 and I got to admit, he's kind of right.

00:10:51.120 Like, you know, they went and dumped the tax hike onto the city of Calgary,

00:10:54.980 but then they're taking the loot.

00:10:56.640 Yeah, largest tax hike against Calgary in history.

00:11:00.020 it's more like $355 a household it's outrageous absolutely outrageous then

00:11:06.860 it's only like a hundred and some per household in Edmonton yes of course we

00:11:11.420 you know which rather live in Edmonton come on no no exactly so I guess we got

00:11:16.580 to suck it up and pay it I have to suck it up and pay it you don't know I mean 0.56

00:11:20.240 there's your county foothills yeah you're not a citizen right there you go

00:11:27.200 that's all i got at the moment okay well thanks for the update and uh i guess i'll see you in a

00:11:31.840 while in the pipeline we will right on all right guys that is our news editor dave nabler and uh

00:11:38.000 this one i like to remind you oh there's a lot of those stories they're breaking fast and heavy on

00:11:42.880 there the reason dave and his uh cadre of reporters that he's managing can do that is because you've

00:11:48.160 subscribed so check it out westernstandard.news subscription is ten dollars a month hundred

00:11:53.360 for a year. This is how we can pay these bills around here and keep ourselves independent and

00:12:00.180 reporting on those stories that legacy media just won't touch. So yeah, let's see some of you folks

00:12:05.980 with their comments. You know, we see a quacker saying, hi, vacation destination is nobody's 0.94

00:12:13.080 business. Well, I didn't ask yours, Norma, so that's okay. Don't worry about it. If you want

00:12:17.680 to go to Mexico by all means it's it's your your full uh business or if you meant on my end you

00:12:23.200 know when people got on my case when I I've openly said uh I was going to Arizona and yes it made me

00:12:28.100 an awful traitor I see what you're talking about there as well and yeah I don't know I I just laugh

00:12:34.060 about it and yes it is you're just absolutely right anyways it is a person's own business but

00:12:38.020 that's the life of social media when you want to share things you're inviting the busy bodies of

00:12:42.560 the world to come in and comment on things or at least I am that's part of the problem when I share

00:12:46.680 everything on X. I mean, I can't complain when I get vitriolic responses. I'm kind of asking for

00:12:51.660 it when I stick things out there. I could remain more private, but that's no fun. So let's see.

00:12:59.700 Yeah. You know that that's the, the issues going on. Yeah. I see that from Norma now. Thanks for

00:13:05.740 defending me. It's hard to get context on a commentary on there. So I appreciate that Norma.

00:13:10.700 And for those on here live and that just to bear in mind, we do have an option for live callers in

00:13:15.260 the final part of the show though nobody's taking me up on it it's because it's they know Corey's

00:13:18.600 such a grouch and they don't necessarily want to interact with me but honestly if you want to call

00:13:22.580 in and chat you can see the number at the bottom of the screen 866-479-9378 and the extension 711

00:13:31.060 you'd be put on hold towards the later part of the show and we could pop you in and have a

00:13:35.480 conversation about one of these many many issues that are going on right now and there is a lot

00:13:42.660 happening. All right. But, you know, I see the guest in the lobby and I meant to mention that

00:13:46.920 at the top of the show. I've been looking forward to this. This is former Alberta Human Rights

00:13:49.960 Commissioner head there, Colin May. He's also a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre, director

00:13:55.240 of research with the Free Speech Union of Canada. And he's written many things on the National Post,

00:14:01.660 the Hub, the Jerusalem Post and the Calgary Herald. And well, you know, the Human Rights

00:14:07.500 Commissions have been in the news again, and it's rarely in a good way. And it's time to have a

00:14:12.280 discussion about these, you know, do we need them or can they be improved or, or what purpose do

00:14:16.600 they serve? So let's bring Mr. May in and have that conversation. Hello, Colin. Thank you very

00:14:20.480 much for joining us today. Hi, Corey. Thanks for having me. So I guess just to get a bit of a

00:14:26.460 background, I, I, I remember it from at the time when you were there for, for a short time, you

00:14:31.060 were the head of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and it's, well, basically you got

00:14:38.080 cancelled yeah yeah exactly yeah i got cancelled um i think in part it was because i was interested

00:14:45.520 in making some changes there uh the alberta ndp who knew me personally uh didn't want me to do

00:14:51.840 that and so they came up with their series of uh smears to get me out but um my you know that was

00:15:00.660 my goal uh i was in there to make some changes to make some important changes uh and now they

00:15:05.900 didn't get done. So that's too bad, but happy to talk about what I would see is something that

00:15:12.620 needs to be done with some of these commissions. Absolutely. So, I mean, you're a lawyer. There

00:15:17.820 were other things you could have been doing with yourself, but you chose to join the Human Rights

00:15:21.320 Commission. I can only presume you felt, though, you could do some good. What purpose did you see

00:15:26.560 then in Human Rights Commissions? What good could they have been providing for the province

00:15:31.280 when you joined it? Well, I mean, I had a background in some of these similar areas,

00:15:37.340 complaints, tribunals, that sort of thing. I was involved in trying to reform professional

00:15:42.620 regulators, which is another topic similar to human rights commissions. And I thought that,

00:15:47.780 you know, we could do some work with the commission as well to improve procedural

00:15:52.380 fairness, especially because a lot of the issues that we're seeing, including with the new fellow

00:15:56.680 case in BC, do come down to whether or not these commissions are actually procedurally fair.

00:16:01.800 And so I wanted to make some changes there.

00:16:03.680 I have a lot of background in that.

00:16:05.100 And that was why I was hoping to do what I was hoping to do there.

00:16:09.600 So there must be some guidelines, you know, so I'll kind of circle this back to the recent case that's really kind of got a lot of, well, there's a couple recently that got people worked up.

00:16:19.740 One's in BC, one's in Ontario.

00:16:20.940 one I'm just talking to the extent of the penalty laid against a person $750,000 which I can only

00:16:30.980 guess this man is going to appeal this somewhere to a proper court because it just seems beyond

00:16:35.440 the pale but are there any limitations on these commissions on the possible penalties they could

00:16:39.940 lay on people? Not really no I mean that's that's the thing and now generally they're in the lower

00:16:45.720 range um 20 000 10 000 you know i think the highest in alberta when i was chief still was

00:16:53.360 about 40 50 000 um but there isn't an actually upper an upper limit now the courts reviewing

00:16:59.960 these can say yeah you've gone way too high here which i'm hoping even if you know whether the

00:17:05.860 courts uphold you know the the determination on the substance hopefully uh they will review this

00:17:12.500 and say this award is way out of the range of the plausible,

00:17:18.720 especially for an individual, because there is a sort of a common law duty

00:17:22.200 to be fair to the respondent, and this case just isn't.

00:17:26.040 This is, I mean, they haven't even identified the people

00:17:30.520 who will be receiving the money yet.

00:17:32.560 So we don't even have actual complainants who will be receiving the money.

00:17:36.520 It's just a broad class, which I think is completely inappropriate

00:17:40.760 for this sort of award.

00:17:42.500 Yeah. And that's another point that's interesting is that, you know, the complainants can be quite well rewarded if they win through these, though it's not going through the proper channels of a civil action in a regular court. So it really incentivizes people to bring in, you know, concerns when they're not necessarily, I mean, you can't speak for all of them, but not necessarily looking to remedy an injustice. I mean, conceivably, some people are just looking to make a few bucks at times.

00:18:08.380 oh sure now i mean once they break up this 750 000 that newfound's supposed to get it could not

00:18:15.200 it might not be that much but they have no idea yet who these people are that they're even going

00:18:19.100 to give this money to but that's exactly one of the problems with these things is that um you know

00:18:25.920 the awards in the larger and larger awards incentivize people to use these procedures

00:18:31.560 certainly and the thing you've got to know about these procedures is as a complainant you have

00:18:37.260 you have no skin in the game really because you don't have to pay for a lawyer uh that's all

00:18:43.020 taken care of for you you're represented by these commissions and into a tribunal you don't have a

00:18:48.540 lawyer and if you lose unless you've done something egregious while you've been a complainant uh you

00:18:54.240 won't have to pay any costs which is completely different of course from a civil action uh so

00:18:59.420 the respondent of course has to pay a lawyer has to go through this process and the process takes

00:19:04.560 years. In Alberta, it was about five years when I became chief just to get to the tribunal to a

00:19:12.180 hearing. So for a respondent, this is a horrible process to go through. So to play a bit of devil's

00:19:19.600 advocate, or maybe not even so much, I mean, there could be people who have really experienced a

00:19:24.180 human rights violation against themselves, and they want to seek remedy. If they are a low-income

00:19:29.860 person without legal connections and so on, though, I mean, going through the conventional

00:19:33.480 system could leave them hanging because that could take years as well but cost you know many

00:19:38.020 thousands of dollars that they presumably don't have. Is that part of the purpose I guess of

00:19:43.040 having a commission rather than putting people through conventional courts? It is yeah and I

00:19:48.940 think there's that that's certainly a plausible that was sort of the reason these things started

00:19:53.720 up. Now what's happened though is you've seen that these commissions most of what they deal

00:20:01.240 with our employment matters. So often what you'll find is somebody has been fired. They're making a

00:20:06.340 claim under the Human Rights Commission, but they'll often have a wrongful dismissal suit

00:20:09.400 going to the courts as well. So we've, you know, do we want to have that sort of this commission

00:20:16.560 also being running adjacent to civil action? They may be going to employment standards. They may

00:20:23.380 be going through a grievance process with the union. And of course, the commission now does

00:20:27.740 have more authority in Alberta to stay their proceedings or to put them on hold but you know

00:20:33.140 we've kind of moved beyond this basic idea of okay you know so I say you have a gay couple and

00:20:40.400 they're trying to rent an apartment and they're denied the rental they could go through this

00:20:44.840 process and say there was you know there was discrimination but we're getting these massive

00:20:50.920 awards that are would really be more appropriate to be considered in a civil case not in this sort

00:20:56.880 venue yeah so i mean and then there's the crazy large awards then there's some small awards

00:21:04.080 but on some really absurd rulings which is one that came out in the last couple of weeks as well

00:21:08.500 so i believe that was in ontario maybe it was quebec uh it was a non-binary person who was

00:21:14.760 demanding a non-binary option for haircuts and then this person had the same need for haircuts

00:21:21.600 that you do. So we aren't even looking at a rational need. This was a bald person demanding

00:21:27.120 a specific type of haircut option. I mean, you would think a person with even a smidgen of

00:21:32.860 common sense would tell this complaint and get out of here. We've got better things to do with

00:21:36.420 our time. But instead, they ruled in favor of this person and fined the place $500.

00:21:44.860 Yeah. And I think that's, again, it's a procedural issue. It shouldn't have gone to that

00:21:50.680 to that link um the the respondent this salon had offered you know three uh three free haircuts and

00:21:59.460 as you say i don't know what i saw the person too i'm not sure what he they she whatever needed them

00:22:05.160 for um i'm not sure what pronouns they use but um you know it then plus they had said they would

00:22:12.560 remedy on their website so that the problem so that you would have a non-binary option

00:22:20.320 and so why didn't why wasn't that sufficient that should have stopped the the case there it should

00:22:25.840 have been accepted but instead the complainant moved it along didn't accept that the commission

00:22:30.640 should have said no and there are procedures increasingly now with these commissions to say

00:22:34.880 if you don't accept a reasonable offer then you're done and i think we need more of that and that's

00:22:40.400 That's why I say, again, we need to focus a lot more on the procedural elements

00:22:43.660 because the case in Quebec is also ridiculous.

00:22:48.040 Well, and they're using it as a weapon, some individuals anyways, and activists. 0.52

00:22:52.480 It reminds me farther back to when same-sex marriage was just starting to become a thing.

00:23:00.660 And I'm fully supportive of it by all means.

00:23:02.740 Hey, great.

00:23:03.660 Good on you.

00:23:04.260 I hope it works.

00:23:04.880 Hope you last until retirement and beyond as a married couple, whatever you might be.

00:23:08.660 But there were couples, I remember one in particular in Vancouver, I think it was, went after a Knights of Columbus hall because they knew darn well it's a Catholic organization and it wouldn't host their reception. Now, if it was the only hall in the world, I could see the problem. But you know, darn well, there was dozens of dozens of halls. Just pick one of those. But they were looking for trouble. And if you're looking for trouble, does that, you know, why should that still entitle you for remedy? That's activism. That's not somebody who's been harmed in a human rights problem.

00:23:36.860 Right. And one of the concerns, and this was in the Neufeld case out of BC, is there was the mention that human rights issues are now moving more. Discrimination is going more from individuals and complainants to thoughts, to belief systems. And people are discriminating more on the basis of belief systems.

00:24:00.520 But the problem with going that route is, of course, people argue over belief systems all the time. You know, that's why you go to university or something. You learn other people's ways of doing things, how they think about things, you know, different philosophies, and you argue over them and you disagree and you say some are wrong.

00:24:20.500 So, you know, we're moving into that range, and I think that's a very scary thing, which is, of course, why a lot of people have said in response to a situation like the Neufeld case is BC, and Alberta would need to do this too, needs to get rid of the provision in their human rights code or statute regarding this hate speech and the publication of hate speech in the same way that the federal government did under Harper, and also Ontario, which does not have this provision in its code.

00:24:48.100 so um kind of where you know when you when you contacted me and something i've been saying

00:24:54.500 online i'm kind of at the point of just saying let's just get rid of these commissions i mean

00:24:58.140 there's nothing they're providing that actually can't be provided in the current court of law

00:25:03.380 in fact they've morphed into something a quasi-judicial uh layer of bureaucracy that

00:25:09.260 can really punish people uh but i mean i don't know is it reparable or maybe is it just time

00:25:14.780 get rid of these and expand our our court ability um i guess i'm i'm sort of either way let's try

00:25:21.820 something let's just do one or the other you know we i think we could repair them but it's going to

00:25:27.340 take some serious looking look at the procedural elements that need to be fixed um and i'm kind of

00:25:33.100 i've been i'm a bit surprised that danielle smith given how she's looked at some of the procedure

00:25:36.940 elements of uh professional regulators hasn't looked at the human rights commission because

00:25:41.420 it needs some work a lot of work actually but on the other hand maybe it is time to get rid of them

00:25:45.980 because you could just create a statutory tort of discrimination and it would go to the courts

00:25:52.220 now of course the courts don't really want that because they these were small small amounts they

00:25:57.500 were small claims and they didn't really want to have to deal with them so they sort of liked having

00:26:01.900 them over at the special commission and they just review the decisions if they're bad but you know

00:26:06.860 If we're going to get into these large numbers, then absolutely, I think you need to have, the courts need to deal with this because there's a lot, the procedural fairness is much better at the court level.

00:26:18.240 You have two parties who are both can be, if either one loses, there's costs awarded, but we don't have that yet.

00:26:27.040 So I think we have to really consider if you're going for some, we maybe do need to get rid of these commissions altogether if we have these higher rewards.

00:26:33.580 or i'm wondering i mean you're more you know of course the uh expert on legal matters could

00:26:39.420 another type of court be set up i'm thinking along the lines of you know there's there's drug courts

00:26:43.560 for example because we didn't want to really choke up our already overburdened criminal courts

00:26:47.660 with a lot of people who were obviously suffering from addiction problems but you still have to deal

00:26:52.380 with them so there's some jurisdictions outside of canada that set up drug courts where they at

00:26:56.320 least then they'll have specialized uh type of it's still a prosecution but it's focused more

00:27:01.480 on the rehabilitation of the individual and it's a little different and it takes things out of you

00:27:05.440 know you don't have a murderer sitting next to a person who's just an addict who was in the

00:27:09.540 got themselves into trouble it could a division of the courts be dedicated still the legal system

00:27:16.100 still the courts but it would be just dedicated to these human rights things and then you could

00:27:19.500 still have some of the the same controls as you would in a proper courtroom well sure i think you

00:27:24.720 could now i'd want to be careful with that because of course one of the other problems is these

00:27:29.860 tribunals that are set up are all have a mandate so um they tend to skew towards a certain view of

00:27:36.420 what human rights should be and shouldn't be so that's another problem with them so like say if

00:27:40.500 we we could certainly put them into the court system and because human rights cases are like

00:27:45.580 when i was chief uh they were 80 to 85 percent of the cases were about discrimination in employment

00:27:51.500 so most lawyers who deal with human rights are also employment and labor lawyers so they could

00:27:57.460 be kind of wrapped into that part of and have sort of a court just specifically dealing with

00:28:03.140 that and the courts are certainly trying to make some changes to speed up employment and wrongful

00:28:07.860 dismissal claims so certainly I think that's that would be another possibility and get them out of

00:28:12.740 this sort of activist approach and of course in the BC case you had they're they're very activist

00:28:18.800 there they even have a commissioner whose whole role is to push a certain notion of human rights

00:28:23.920 which is very identity-based, which I would completely get rid of. I don't think that's

00:28:27.960 legitimate at all, but yeah, I think we could certainly move to the courts.

00:28:33.060 Are these solely provincial jurisdiction, or is this a federally driven sort of thing like

00:28:38.220 criminal law? It's, well, every province sets up their own, so they're different across

00:28:44.700 each jurisdiction, but the feds also have a Canadian Human Rights Commission,

00:28:49.520 um which has had its own issues there's been accusations of racism going on there and their

00:28:56.260 chief had ran into a problem who he got booted out he came from alberta actually so um yeah i

00:29:02.900 think you know they're all they're across the country but each one is different too so they

00:29:06.120 have different approaches all right well that time went fast but it's interesting you know i i see a

00:29:12.120 commenter saying human rights you know i'd say get rid of them i i'm hoping and i'm thinking the 0.69

00:29:15.980 person means the commissions, not the human rights and in of themselves, but human rights

00:29:19.720 are important and the protection of them is important and for people who aren't necessarily

00:29:24.100 able to defend themselves. So it's going to be an ongoing discussion. Unfortunately, it just seems

00:29:27.800 we've kind of created a monster in the mechanism that has defeated its initial perhaps goals and

00:29:35.160 purposes. So before I let you go though, you're quite prolific with your columns and things

00:29:39.460 online. Where can people find your work and your stuff so they can follow up on what you're doing?

00:29:44.220 um i have a lot of on my linkedin page i also have a muckrake page actually i didn't set it up

00:29:51.340 i guess if you're right enough you get one of those uh but uh you know i've got quite a bit

00:29:56.220 on there on my facebook page uh so you know look at any of those and if anybody's interested you

00:30:01.780 know send me send me a link to ask me to to chat and i'm happy to to talk about any of the things

00:30:07.820 that i've written about recently and you still have an active legal practice in the province

00:30:12.380 as well, I believe, or?

00:30:14.280 Well, unfortunately, when you're canceled and fired publicly,

00:30:19.760 it slows your legal practice down.

00:30:21.460 So my practice is not up to full speed yet.

00:30:24.360 And, of course, I'm involved in litigation with certain parties.

00:30:28.620 So, you know, that takes up some time.

00:30:30.780 But I'm getting back there.

00:30:31.960 I'm kind of, I'd say, I'd have half of a practice.

00:30:34.800 All right.

00:30:35.720 Well, either way, I hope it takes off.

00:30:38.420 And I do hope you get remedied for, yeah,

00:30:40.220 it's uh there would be all almost a whole separate interview to talk about the the bs whereas you

00:30:44.340 ended up getting cancelled uh as i said i remember it happening at the time i think i might have

00:30:47.920 written a column on it actually back then so uh well thank you very much for the the time you you

00:30:52.660 gave us today and uh for talking about this and well let's just uh hope if we keep pushing some

00:30:56.820 common sense will finally come in i mean it doesn't always get there but we got to keep trying

00:31:01.820 yeah well in these i think with the common sense is what's needed and it's it's not there and

00:31:06.380 there hasn't been, we just haven't shone enough light on these things. And, but hopefully these

00:31:10.500 bad decisions will, you know, spur some change. I hope so. I guess when they overshoot the target

00:31:17.160 far enough, it can actually lead to positive change later. It's just, unfortunately, Mr.

00:31:21.540 Dufeld's got to suffer some stress until it gets to that point. So thank you again. And I hope we

00:31:26.500 get to talk again soon. Great. Thanks, Corey. Great. Thank you. So yes, guys, that is Colin

00:31:31.940 May. And yes, he's done a lot of work out there. And he's, oh, I see that as well. He's completing

00:31:37.780 a book right now on the future of cancel culture. I wrote on that, actually, that was in a different

00:31:43.920 publication. I write in multiple places myself, but about the Kaylin Ford case, speaking of

00:31:49.120 cancel culture. And that's one that just got into, there's Western Standard stories on it.

00:31:53.580 We're covering that. Got into the courtroom. Speaking of things that take a long time, I think

00:31:57.800 that was began in 2019. And she's finally getting remedy in the courts there. That's part of how

00:32:04.220 things unfortunately wear you down when it comes to trying to get justice for yourself. But she's

00:32:12.540 really been victimized by cancel culture. And she's pushing back and she's fighting back. And

00:32:17.920 to a degree, she's already been winning. There's been a couple already settled out of court

00:32:21.440 knobs such as Duncan Kinney, I believe did. And his little, I don't, I can't keep track of them

00:32:29.540 progress, Alberta or press progress, but look that stuff up because we do have a civil court's

00:32:35.120 means to deal with things. But as we're seeing too, it can really take a long, painful and

00:32:41.120 expensive time. So again, hats off for Kaylin. She wasn't giving up and she's been pushing 0.57

00:32:45.320 and CBC and the Toronto Star and the NDP, all are defendants in this thing.

00:32:53.260 And yeah, so Jacqueline Littler, setting up more courts for specialized things, 1.00

00:32:57.820 just kicked the can down the road, saw the results of divorce courts by a friend, disgusting.

00:33:01.200 Yeah, family court, I mean, law is complicated. It's a mess. 0.77

00:33:05.980 Of all areas, I wouldn't want to be a lawyer or judge in it if I had to be a lawyer or judge.

00:33:10.020 I think I want to stay away from the divorces for all I'm worth. But of course, somebody has to do

00:33:15.180 it. Somebody has to be the mediator. Somebody has to sit in the middle. Look, there are some cases

00:33:21.160 of over, you know, too much intolerance. And they're to the point where it gets where somebody

00:33:27.900 should be perhaps, you know, I guess, punished, discouraged. I don't know. And we need a rational

00:33:34.200 discussion on it, though. Not when some he, them, whatever the heck it is, nutcase, wants to

00:33:39.440 demand a haircut when they have no hair or, uh, that, uh, Jessica Yaniv deal out in BC, 1.00

00:33:46.320 you might remember, uh, that guy was out there demanding that, uh, uh, uh, minorities in, in, 0.97

00:33:53.200 in, uh, aesthetics places wax his nuts. You know, we all remember that. And then of course it was

00:33:59.820 just an extortion scheme really, because he would take it to the human rights commission. Cause of

00:34:03.540 course, they will take every case, at least to consider every case, and it would freak out

00:34:10.060 those people and he would hope for a settlement outside of that. And why people like that are

00:34:16.080 taken seriously and able to abuse that system? You know, we've got to stop that idiocy. So 1.00

00:34:22.180 let's get more into BC. We've got some crazy stuff going on, that Musqueam decision, which 1.00

00:34:28.580 nobody quite seems to know what it means yet but I mean some of the stuff uh at first they

00:34:34.960 wouldn't put the agreement out of the federal government and and uh the Musqueam and British

00:34:40.940 Columbia what's going on like is this land given control over is it not and they wouldn't give the

00:34:45.520 text to the agreement so they did release the text and uh one of the things in it says it does not

00:34:50.480 create title and does not constitute a treaty or land claims agreement. Okay. Uh, but then they

00:34:58.760 could also potentially seek that through the courts. The Cowichan did that and, uh, this opens

00:35:04.720 the door. So some of the people are kind of, I think, overreacting at least on the immediate

00:35:10.020 consequences of what's going on with that, that settlement or the agreement or whatever the heck

00:35:14.620 it is, but they are not wrong in being freaked out and concerned about what this is going to turn

00:35:21.040 into farther down the road. This never stops. This never stops. Here's where I get on the case of

00:35:29.020 truth and reconciliation commissions and endless settlements and payouts and so on. When does it

00:35:36.220 end? How many more generations? Are we going to have to get 500 years away from when Canada became

00:35:43.060 a country or Alberta became a, uh, a province before we finally say, okay, we've paid back

00:35:49.020 enough. No, it won't end because there's a whole pile of lawyers making a whole pile of money out

00:35:55.540 of this, not to mention a whole lot of claimants, um, constantly reaching their hands out and

00:36:03.720 getting settlements. I talked about that recently, of course, with the, the, the grifters, I'll say

00:36:07.920 of the fraudsters and the Kamloops band who took $12 million to exhume and dig holes and never did

00:36:15.600 it. And where's the responsibility? If it had been in the business world, you either would have been

00:36:20.220 charged with fraud or at the very least taken to court and would have a lien put on your house

00:36:25.140 until you pay the money back. Nothing though, nothing. What did they do? They gave them another

00:36:29.440 $12 million so they could build a healing lodge for the bodies they never found. This endless

00:36:36.620 This irresponsibility, this endless settlement of something that can never be settled, apparently, this compensating generationally for things that happened hundreds of years ago, not only all of that, but it's not working.

00:36:52.000 It's not working.

00:36:52.840 Go on to any reserve and look at the conditions.

00:36:56.640 Look at any of the statistics for Indigenous Canadians, any of them, health, economic, education, any of them.

00:37:04.240 and they're lagging on all of them and getting worse all the time,

00:37:08.140 despite more and more and more and more money being pumped at them.

00:37:11.560 Maybe it's time to stop because it's not working.

00:37:14.500 If it was working, maybe we'd have something to say.

00:37:18.140 Harmony, balance, health, safety.

00:37:19.420 So what is working properly?

00:37:20.740 And even in Alberta, I imagine you meet with the Human Rights Commissions.

00:37:25.220 I think in Alberta, we aren't hearing about them.

00:37:27.520 As Colin said, these are things that are provincially, I guess, at least administered.

00:37:31.740 So perhaps the Smith government hasn't, you know, hasn't put the ideological lunatics at the head of the Alberta one.

00:37:38.960 I imagine the complaints have been going forward.

00:37:40.980 But if this commission has been showing some common sense and actually vetting these and saying these are nuts, maybe that would work.

00:37:47.180 You know, that's that's part of it, I guess.

00:37:50.560 You really just why is it so hard?

00:37:52.540 Why is it so hard to get somebody heading these things who can't just look at some of these frivolous cases and just say, no, no, we're not going to spend our time on that.

00:38:01.540 We're not going to go after somebody on that.

00:38:03.860 You are being unreasonable and we aren't going to let you take up any more of our time.

00:38:08.800 But they don't, or at least, well, we never see the ones they say no to.

00:38:12.000 But when we see some of the crazy ones they say yes to, it doesn't seem that they turn down too many.

00:38:18.220 Speaking of insanity, Brampton, Ontario, really turning into one of the hubs for, you know, Canada in its bad examples.

00:38:27.660 And they hosted a memorial for the Ayatollah Khomeini following his death, a memorial, the man who killed 30,000 protesters in five days.

00:38:39.120 You know, the double standards in this world, 30,000 protesters, just protesters of his own people in five days.

00:38:49.160 And he didn't get a fraction. 0.98

00:38:51.380 Well, actually, the crap caught up with him now, didn't it? 0.96

00:38:53.940 uh, but of the world condemnation, condemning, yeah, whatever. You know what I mean? The world 0.98

00:39:00.020 didn't get on his case like they do every time an errant action happens from Israel, do they? 0.99

00:39:05.140 The man's a monster. I mean, you see the quote going around with that man. He's the one who was 0.60

00:39:09.000 saying before they sentenced women to death, and by the way, Iran routinely sentenced his woman 0.98

00:39:13.260 to death for the crime of being raped. But there's other crimes, you know, not listening to their

00:39:19.120 husband, things like that. And if it's some sort of crime a woman has allegedly committed,

00:39:23.180 maybe she hasn't been raped because she's still a virgin, but they're going to put her to death 1.00

00:39:27.200 because that's what they like to do over there. He's the one who said, make sure she is 0.99

00:39:31.280 raped before she is put to death so there's no chance she can get 1.00

00:39:35.220 into heaven in the afterlife. Can you get any more 0.99

00:39:39.320 evil and vile than that?

00:39:44.040 Yet, here's some evil, vile

00:39:47.260 individuals holding a memorial for that man. 0.97

00:39:49.800 Yeah, the world is an ugly, ugly thing. I talked a little, mentioned a little earlier on my thing. Yeah, we've got the Alreda Federation of Labor. That's headed by Gil McAllen. He's been there a long time. You know, you get in those labor positions, they're almost as good as being an indigenous chief for getting the money, eh? Job security. 0.98

00:40:14.760 He won't admit it, but the reality is that whole recall attempt that's falling apart chronically.

00:40:22.860 They were supposed to petition.

00:40:24.420 They were supposed to unseat the Smith government.

00:40:27.180 Oh, yeah, Legacy Media was reporting on it in hushed tones.

00:40:29.960 Oh, no, Daniel Smith's in trouble.

00:40:32.580 These recalls might knock her majority down to the minority and she'll lose government. 1.00

00:40:36.680 No, in fact, they totally flopped.

00:40:41.200 So now he's saying he's going to launch a big campaign to fight for Alberta's silent majority.

00:40:47.560 They're really silent, Gil, aren't they?

00:40:49.560 So this ought to be fun to watch, fun to watch.

00:40:52.300 It's the only thing, there's one of the things, I guess, because like I said, I'm trying to be constructively critical of the Smith government.

00:40:58.140 Because for the most part, I like them.

00:40:59.920 And I certainly appreciate Daniel Smith in general.

00:41:03.800 We're very close to each other ideologically, and I think she wants to do the right things.

00:41:07.960 but there's that temptation of just going with the flow or going with whatever way you're pushed

00:41:16.020 from the opposition. And the only opposition we have right now is coming from the left. So that's

00:41:21.220 when they're throwing money at issues rather than solving them because that's a left-wing approach

00:41:28.020 to it. But look at the opposition. Nahed Menchie, he's failing brutally, brutally. People still

00:41:36.420 don't even really know who he is. He's not grabbing the imagination of Albertans. The NDP

00:41:40.380 is sinking in the polls, which again, kind of worries me a little because we've got to make

00:41:46.460 sure to keep a little fire under the government, whether it's a government you like or not.

00:41:50.880 And he's not doing that. He's failing. He's a terrible leader of the opposition.

00:41:55.800 Max Fawcett, if you really want to see leftist knobs, he's a special sort of example of one,

00:42:02.820 But even he has been coming out now, and this is fun to kind of watch in a morbid sort of way.

00:42:07.500 They're starting to call for Nenshi to get out.

00:42:10.260 They're saying it's time you failed.

00:42:12.120 He didn't even get two years in the leadership, I think, yet.

00:42:14.880 And the NDP is already saying, yeah, this isn't going to work.

00:42:17.520 That's fine.

00:42:18.960 Let's watch the scrapping keep happening there. 0.96

00:42:22.680 But also at the same time, we need some pressure, constructive pressure, real opposition,

00:42:28.600 not just that constant, we just oppose everything you're doing.

00:42:32.820 pressure we need a good opposition that's what i would like to think a free media can provide

00:42:39.300 and uh something i said to a friend recently i've said this multiple times i think the most

00:42:44.420 conservative federal government we ever had in canada was jean chretien and how so well it's

00:42:51.460 because the reform party was breathing down his neck and it was pressuring him to get spending

00:42:59.940 under control and uh that forced him to balance the budget but you see they will respond to where

00:43:06.880 their pressure is coming from and uh let's see we do have a call on the line finally somebody's

00:43:12.700 giving me a call my feelings were getting hurt there so let's wrap up the show with a quick chat

00:43:16.200 with whoever we got on the line there and and uh see what else is happening hello who we got here

00:43:21.220 uh it's christian hey christian how you doing hello yeah good how are you good good we just

00:43:27.720 got a couple minutes left but i appreciate the call what you got to see i have a question like

00:43:33.340 um because albera government went like nine billion into the deficit how are they planning on

00:43:40.020 or like paying that off or like what is like is there even a plan or are they kind of just going

00:43:46.220 to keep deal with ottawa doesn't just constantly kick the can down the road and just raise deficit

00:43:51.540 and be like not our problem type deal do you know anything about that yeah well i mean i can't i'm

00:43:57.880 not inside their rooms but it's a very good question and there's truth to it because we're

00:44:01.000 supposed to be better i think the plan was to kick it down the road and hope that oil prices rise

00:44:05.920 and they kind of got their wish so the oil prices went up but that's why that's part of why i was

00:44:11.600 saying you people like you people like me have got to keep the pressure on them and not let them

00:44:15.040 get lazy when the oil prices are high so that we don't have these later but it's a very good

00:44:19.500 question i i they're acting just like ottawa and i think they're kicking it down the road

00:44:22.780 okay yeah i don't think i would say this even if well i don't think all prices stay long from

00:44:29.900 too much longer because like every war comes in at some point so hopefully sooner or later but

00:44:36.160 yeah okay thank you no thank you i appreciate it and you're right you know eventually the prices

00:44:41.900 will come down somebody pointed that out not too long ago i saw oil prices actually when they spike

00:44:46.940 like this often will have a big crash later. So they shouldn't budget hoping that the prices are

00:44:52.780 going to stay up. You see, we're getting wisdom from the callers here. I wish Christian was sitting

00:44:57.660 in the room with the premier and pointing out that true common sense of just guys, we're Albertans,

00:45:04.540 we're supposed to be doing better. So let's keep that opposition up, as I was saying, because we

00:45:08.540 don't really have it coming from the right. We don't have the pressure telling them, hey guys,

00:45:12.820 get your spending under control. Okay. I think that's the time we got for today. I appreciate

00:45:18.880 the calls. I appreciate the comments coming in the scroll. And again, be sure to subscribe and

00:45:23.700 watch the pipeline tonight. It will be on. And as well, you know, Marty Up North and other shows

00:45:29.940 that are coming on stream, subscribe to those things, like, share all of that good stuff.

00:45:34.940 And we'll make Alberta a better place yet. Thank you. See you on the next one.

00:45:42.820 Transcription by CastingWords

Western Standard - March 04, 2026

Alberta’s budgetary shame

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