Western Standard - Alberta’s ridiculous high-speed internet scheme is robbing taxpayers

00:00:00.000 Good day.

00:00:29.440 welcome to the cory morgan show so we're moving our way into spring got a bit of a taste of it

00:00:34.960 though i'm certain our news editor will give me crap for the upcoming bad weather that's coming

00:00:38.160 along shortly that's just part of the weekly complaining routine i complain for a living

00:00:43.120 seems to work out well you guys like listening to it for the most part but we got positive things

00:00:47.360 and stuff to cover and things happening out there today my guest a little while it's a fellow named

00:00:51.680 greg wilson he's an engineer and he'd written a great column on why your next mayor should

00:00:57.120 be an engineer sounds pretty self-serving and maybe sounds a little bit dry but that's kind of

00:01:00.880 the point uh we we we vote for the flash rather than the substance sometimes and well we're playing

00:01:08.160 they've seen the consequences of that uh with calgary uh you know a city of what getting towards

00:01:12.640 two million people that has gone through two different phases of if it's yellow let it mellow

00:01:17.680 not exactly uh points of pride in in local infrastructure lots of other things to cover

00:01:24.480 as well but i'll get things going with my prime complaint of the day so this was uh inspired the

00:01:31.440 other day i saw a surveyor measuring the extent of my acreage from the uh outer edges there and

00:01:36.240 i got a soft spot for surveyors i was one for 20 years so i wasn't too concerned could be for a

00:01:41.520 future road upgrade or something in the area i was curious though so i made some inquiries

00:01:45.680 turns out the area is being surveyed for a potential broadband internet provider

00:01:49.680 and they're checking the home locations for potential relays i couldn't help it roll my

00:01:53.760 eyes our community has had companies come and go offering new internet systems almost

00:01:58.320 annually since i moved out to the country 14 years ago and none of those came to fruition

00:02:03.200 for a number of reasons so why do these companies keep doing it though they they never get enough

00:02:06.880 people signing up to get them rolling but they still keep going through these processes town

00:02:11.120 hall meetings surveys measurements well because taxpayers are getting soaked by them through

00:02:15.120 government high-speed internet schemes my wife and i understood when we moved out to the country 0.59

00:02:20.080 we're going to be sacrificing some conveniences. And that meant we wouldn't at that time have

00:02:24.740 ready access to high-speed internet options. That's fine. There was a local broadband provider

00:02:29.720 at the time. They offered service. It was marginally better than dial-up and their support

00:02:33.700 system was on par with your typical phone provider, which is to say terrible. Then the

00:02:37.940 TELUS hub came along and for a while, you know, we switched to it for a while. It provided better

00:02:42.080 service than that broadband provider. But as all our neighbors all started switching to the hub as

00:02:46.300 well, the tower became overwhelmed and the hub became useless. Finally, in 2021, we heard that

00:02:51.300 Starlink satellite internet service is going to become available for our area. We put ourselves

00:02:55.920 on a waiting list and spent $750 for the hardware. It took a year before the service arrived, but

00:03:01.320 when it did, it was a true game changer. We had ready access to service far superior than any

00:03:06.680 local options. Since then, speeds have only increased and the costs have come down. There's

00:03:11.980 no longer a waiting list and a person can now get a dish for a couple hundred bucks.

00:03:15.880 Nearly every home in our area has a Starlink dish on the roof.

00:03:18.460 Drive in rural areas, you see them everywhere.

00:03:21.180 The rural internet service issue has been solved.

00:03:24.300 Not willing to let a good but slow-moving concept go to waste, though,

00:03:27.460 the federal and provincial government of Alberta are still blowing a billion dollars

00:03:30.480 to bring outdated technology to rural homes throughout the province.

00:03:34.140 I understand that fiber optic internet provides faster service than satellite,

00:03:38.040 but it's only feasible in areas where there's a degree of home density.

00:03:41.500 Running those lines out to rural homes costs a fortune.

00:03:43.800 Not only is the government plan sinking a fortune into fiber optic lines, but it's subsidizing crappy broadband services too, which are even worse than the satellite that's being offered.

00:03:52.120 Nobody's going to switch to these services, but the taxpayers get to pay for all that setup and hardware all the same.

00:03:57.320 In my area, the latest government-funded proposed internet provision incarnation is called Mage Networks.

00:04:02.840 They've been given $4.421 million tax dollars to service a potential 695 homes.

00:04:09.520 Like I said, we're not going to sign up for them.

00:04:11.180 That's going to cost about $6,400 a home to offer services that nobody wants.

00:04:16.200 Did I mention everybody already has Starlink?

00:04:18.340 It doesn't matter when the government backstops your venture, though, does it?

00:04:21.280 And it gets worse than that.

00:04:22.860 In the county of 40 Mile, wireless service is going to be set up to cover 81 homes.

00:04:27.200 It's going to cost $30,555 each.

00:04:33.580 And again, most of those homes already have Starlink, and they have good cell service.

00:04:37.880 Oh, up north, fiber optic cables.

00:04:39.820 That's going to be run to 303 homes at a cost of $19,000 per home.

00:04:43.840 And that operation is going to be run by the Woodland Cree First Nation.

00:04:48.380 Yeah, they've taken up internet management now.

00:04:50.240 I can't imagine how well that's going to go.

00:04:52.320 There's duplication as well.

00:04:53.780 While Mage is getting millions to provide service to my area,

00:04:56.900 Explore is getting another $4.6 million to cover my area as well.

00:05:00.880 Did I mention my area has everybody already has satellite service?

00:05:03.960 This list goes on and on.

00:05:05.300 Service to Slave Lake area, $37,000 per household. White Court area, $25,000 per household. Clearwater

00:05:12.740 County, $32,000 per household. There's a link online showing all the government programs. You

00:05:18.400 can find all of these, and they're never going to be able to keep up with the technology.

00:05:22.520 Even if internet service was some sort of human right that taxpayers should be obligated to fund,

00:05:27.460 they should be doing so through the most cost-effective means possible. They could put

00:05:31.800 a Starlink dish on every house for $200 each and be done with it, and it'd be finished in a year.

00:05:37.640 Over 95% of the province already has full high-speed service. There's no need to spend a

00:05:41.920 billion dollars to provide it to the tiny remainder who have mostly already switched to Starlink

00:05:45.760 anyways. These new providers, they're going to go bust, and I know I certainly won't be giving up my

00:05:50.760 satellite service for some new crappy wireless provider whenever it may finally become active,

00:05:54.860 neither are my neighbours going to. They may as well be stringing more cable for telephone landlines.

00:06:00.480 What could the government cut?

00:06:02.000 That's a question that's often asked.

00:06:03.500 Well, here's an easy one.

00:06:04.960 Of course, they won't, though.

00:06:06.180 It's for the same old reason.

00:06:07.280 Some well-connected people who got the contracts from these programs are going to get very, very rich from it.

00:06:13.280 All right.

00:06:13.760 Well, it's got me ranting today to start things out.

00:06:16.300 How's it going, Dave?

00:06:16.940 It's going well.

00:06:17.640 How are you?

00:06:18.160 Good.

00:06:18.640 Good.

00:06:18.880 Do you know what's coming later on this week?

00:06:20.840 What do we got?

00:06:21.600 Snow.

00:06:22.120 Oh, I know.

00:06:22.980 Snow.

00:06:23.360 And you know what's coming May 21st?

00:06:25.360 Well, that'll always be snow.

00:06:27.080 It's snow.

00:06:27.520 You can't even fault me on that one.

00:06:29.140 I mean, that's a tradition.

00:06:29.980 No, so stop saying spring is around.

00:06:32.360 Well, it's close.

00:06:33.500 I fed my bees the other day.

00:06:34.760 Oh, did you?

00:06:35.200 Yeah, they were very happy.

00:06:36.420 What did you feed them?

00:06:37.340 Sugar water.

00:06:38.080 Oh, okay.

00:06:38.600 Yeah.

00:06:39.040 Nice.

00:06:39.420 They're doing well.

00:06:40.180 Awesome.

00:06:40.800 When's the honey coming?

00:06:42.000 It'll be another couple of months yet.

00:06:43.360 Okay.

00:06:44.320 I hear Jane is out shopping for gargoyles. 0.63

00:06:47.040 She might be.

00:06:50.200 Explain.

00:06:50.760 Well, yeah, it's the old Calgary Herald downtown building that got torn down, I think, like

00:06:55.120 1940 or something, but it was there.

00:06:56.960 a piece of history in downtown calgary a cool building and they had these these gargoyles

00:07:01.280 actually they're called something else these things i forget what it is again uh that got

00:07:05.560 saved from the building before they tore it down and stored in a warehouse forever in the city of

00:07:10.980 calgary and finally they're putting them up for auction and they're really cool looking i mean

00:07:14.360 they have the typesetter and the news editor and all sorts of things but they're 750 pounds each

00:07:21.540 And my wife, who loves impulse buys and auctions, I do fear I'm going to roll up to the house and see a picker truck unloading a gargoyle onto our front lawn at some point.

00:07:30.480 Well, you can put several on there and turn yourself into, like, what's that island?

00:07:36.160 Easter Island.

00:07:36.680 Oh, yes. 0.87

00:07:37.360 Yeah, just bury them halfway.

00:07:38.820 Easter Island and Prittis.

00:07:39.900 You can turn your place into a tourist trap, sell tickets, sell honey.

00:07:43.940 I'm already chasing surveyors away.

00:07:45.620 I don't know if I need more people visiting my little hideout in the Prittis area.

00:07:49.340 Your little compound?

00:07:49.760 Yeah.

00:07:51.000 Awesome. Well, we've got lots of news to talk about today, Corey. We're leading off with a guy

00:07:57.400 in Ontario, an Indian gentleman who came over here and ended up sexually assaulting very badly

00:08:05.880 another Indian woman who had moved here. He basically told her, look, they're not going

00:08:11.640 to believe you and I'm going to get away with this. I know how the justice system works in Canada.

00:08:16.600 and he did he got away with it he was sentenced in absentia to seven years but the day he was

00:08:22.040 convicted he got an airplane uh walked or sort of went across the border in vermont and got a

00:08:27.560 flight back to europe and then back to india so he's escaping justice uh think hq mark henry uh

00:08:35.240 well-known pollster has done one on maid in alberta overwhelming number of people support

00:08:40.680 MAID. I think it's 76%. But there's some concerns about the provincial government's

00:08:47.240 bill that is going to limit the scope of MAID. People are concerned about that.

00:08:53.640 You'll be pleased to know one of Canada's most notorious gangsters, Jamie Bacon, is back on the

00:08:59.720 streets. He was a conspirator in that Surrey Six murder case back in the day where six people were

00:09:07.320 shot to death including innocent witnesses uh so he's uh he's not well yeah and yeah i saw i read 0.88

00:09:13.000 that story too and he's got scumbag family members with other convictions and a network of things 0.74

00:09:18.280 that doesn't look very likely he's going to be a reformed uh good model citizen here no either his 1.00

00:09:24.040 his brothers are dead and his other you know that's they're real scumbags that's for sure 0.99

00:09:29.960 uh doug ford has sold his gravy plane um he finally uh you know he has come across so badly 0.98

00:09:38.200 on this uh in the last couple days he he buys a 29 million dollar plane to uh to travel around

00:09:44.680 in luxury and then he's surprised when taxpayers are overage and he's he's he's sulking he's

00:09:52.040 petulant he's saying well you know prime minister's got a plane everybody's got a plane

00:09:56.840 except me oh woe is me i never file expenses anyways they've sold it back to uh bombardier

00:10:03.400 for for the same price 29 million and uh he'll have to take west jet whenever he flies yeah

00:10:09.240 don't he flies coach yeah i don't know about flying in the states these days it was another

00:10:13.960 close call near canada plane and uh american airlines plane over jfk they had to take evasive

00:10:20.760 action as they were uh sort of on a on a hit course and uh ctv the owner bell media was in

00:10:29.720 parliament yesterday saying they're uh they're losing 40 million dollars a year on local newscasts

00:10:35.320 and uh it's not sustainable and it's a crisis and give us more money please well they'll probably

00:10:40.520 get it yeah probably probably so uh busy day uh the uh province is going to announce their

00:10:48.440 strategy on nuclear power at three o'clock. And Daniel Smith is giving a press conference on

00:10:54.680 cancer care as we speak. Okay, well, lots to cover. As always. Well, I'll let you get back

00:11:04.680 to covering that and staying on those reporters. And I guess, you know, enjoy the last few hours

00:11:08.520 of this warm day before we return. Yes, the rain is coming and snow is coming, thanks to you.

00:11:12.480 Okay, well, people always coach that, but look how good it is for the farmers.

00:11:18.440 at some point the farmer's gonna have enough yeah i think we all have one day one day all right

00:11:24.560 thanks dave you bet all right that is our news editor dave naylor lots on the go lots of stories

00:11:28.900 national international local and the reason we can do it is that reminder get on there because

00:11:34.580 you guys have subscribed westernstandard.news slash membership get on there it's 10 bucks a

00:11:40.120 month 100 for a year and you can get past the paywall and get straight through those stories

00:11:45.040 And of course, most importantly, help support those reporters and columnists that provide all that content out here for you.

00:11:53.320 Because, you know, CTV, well, they're big in government for more money.

00:11:57.280 I'm just big in you guys for more money.

00:11:58.680 You know, it's a better way to go with these things.

00:12:03.660 All right. Yeah. Lots happening out there.

00:12:06.660 You know, the maid thing, medical assistance and dying.

00:12:11.880 It's such a rough discussion.

00:12:14.380 And I had, and I keep mentioning it, and I've forgotten his name.

00:12:17.640 It's been a few years.

00:12:18.340 I've done hundreds of shows.

00:12:19.340 But the lawyer for Sue Rodriguez on, and this was way back in the 90s when they were talking,

00:12:24.400 and they called it outright just assisted suicide at that time, a little more blunt.

00:12:28.000 But for people with chronic, painful conditions who just wanted to end it,

00:12:33.080 but wanted a medical assistance in doing it.

00:12:36.080 And he didn't, even a couple of years ago, envision where we'd be going with this maid, though. 0.90

00:12:42.100 They never for a second thought it would be offered to somebody who solely has mental health issues as a condition.

00:12:49.420 Depression.

00:12:50.340 I mean, there was one kid who, you know, I think it was diabetes he had.

00:12:55.960 And it was our own Linda Slobodian who reported on it, exposed that because her parents were worried and his parents were worried.

00:13:02.380 And he did turn around.

00:13:04.060 Diabetes and depression aren't enough reason.

00:13:06.200 These are things that a person can work through.

00:13:10.900 I mean, this meat should only be available for the incurable.

00:13:14.880 And I think most people agree with that.

00:13:17.040 That's what we're talking about, though, 70%.

00:13:19.120 I mean, people have seen loved ones die, particularly of degenerative or painful or awful diseases.

00:13:24.540 I mean, we don't all get to go out in our sleep in a pretty way, unfortunately.

00:13:28.720 It is an option, I think, that's worth offering some people to make that choice,

00:13:33.220 to go out how they want or with dignity.

00:13:35.620 But it has to be very carefully applied.

00:13:39.000 And I don't think it's necessarily that hard to figure out.

00:13:41.080 Again, when it's terminal, when it's not going to be long,

00:13:44.180 when there's no standard of living, then allow that person.

00:13:46.700 The other thing is don't push it on people.

00:13:48.700 That shouldn't be option one.

00:13:51.080 We've got other areas with religious-based palliative care networks

00:13:55.620 and places where it's the final days and they're watching people.

00:13:58.500 But yeah, the religious nature of those ones doesn't want to offer it.

00:14:02.380 And they're getting pressured to offer it despite.

00:14:05.560 right let's not how can we ruin a I don't know if I'd say a good thing but you know what I mean

00:14:11.520 like we don't want to get rid of or at least not I don't agree and get rid of made altogether it

00:14:16.560 has a place it has a reason but at the same time it has to have guardrails and controls and we're

00:14:22.300 not seeing that and that's a big big concern it's it's a very irreversible uh thing uh you see uh

00:14:30.680 One of the commenters saying, great show.

00:14:32.980 Hope Josh is doing well from John.

00:14:35.660 Yes, and he's sitting in as a producer today.

00:14:38.360 So if there are any technical hangups or problems or everything else,

00:14:42.600 Josh's fault over there, and I will certainly call him out

00:14:44.920 and blame him for it heartily and never let him forget.

00:14:48.300 But so far, so good.

00:14:49.080 It's been going great.

00:14:50.040 I see our guest in the lobby, and let's bring him in.

00:14:53.240 Let's talk about the exciting world of municipal infrastructure and engineering.

00:14:58.140 This is Greg Wilson.

00:14:59.180 and he wrote, as I said, a great piece in the CTC Journal.

00:15:02.240 Thanks for coming on to talk to us today, Greg.

00:15:04.300 Thanks so much for having me.

00:15:06.100 So your piece was entitled, I think,

00:15:09.460 Why Our Next Mayor Needs to Be an Engineer.

00:15:11.660 And I think that kind of applies to municipalities anywhere.

00:15:16.240 And it was really great, actually, how you broke it down.

00:15:19.540 The reality is, I mean, I catch it.

00:15:21.120 I say it sounds like a bit of a technical and boring conversation,

00:15:23.040 but that's part of the problem and why things have been let to atrophy

00:15:26.580 and get into such bad condition.

00:15:28.680 So maybe just kind of lay out what inspired you to write this.

00:15:31.500 Absolutely.

00:15:32.300 I myself am an engineer.

00:15:34.160 I've worked as a civil engineer specifically in restoration engineering for about 15 years.

00:15:39.260 So I see this every day.

00:15:41.440 And it was a few months ago that I decided to start speaking about it publicly and writing about it and having these kind of conversations with people like yourself publicly.

00:15:52.360 To me, municipal governments touch our day-to-day life,

00:15:55.980 and we need to have the right people in place making the right decisions.

00:16:00.220 And unfortunately, to date, that largely hasn't happened.

00:16:03.760 Yeah, well, and I mean, it's sort of just the nature of politics.

00:16:06.320 Our politicians, particularly municipal, look, everybody wants to leave a legacy.

00:16:10.980 They want to have a ribbon cutting or a park that's been named after them,

00:16:13.640 or even a rail line, you know, or light rail or something where they can say they've really helped things.

00:16:19.440 nobody thinks about sewage or water supplies though that's really the the basis of a municipality

00:16:26.780 those are some of the most important core areas and we never hear about it. Absolutely and I think

00:16:31.660 a big problem in Canada as large is we are solely dependent on the the social systems and we just

00:16:39.000 assume that these systems are always going to be working for us and that's not always the case

00:16:45.500 And so we need the right decision makers, like I said, in place.

00:16:49.080 But I think a lot of people are just complacent that the water just is always going to run

00:16:54.380 and that your toilet is always going to flush.

00:16:56.980 And in cases like Calgary, where that hasn't been the case,

00:17:00.120 it becomes hugely problematic very quickly for people.

00:17:03.360 And it can lead to very serious societal problems, too.

00:17:08.040 Oh, yeah.

00:17:08.300 This goes well beyond Calgary, too.

00:17:09.820 I noticed your piece says that Canada has, what, an estimated 470,000 kilometers of underground water lines.

00:17:16.160 I guess that can vary everywhere from a little transmission one to some major ones.

00:17:20.500 But that's a heck of a lot of buried infrastructure that, let's face it, is starting to get on in age.

00:17:26.760 Absolutely.

00:17:27.400 And in 2019, a report was done, a Canadian infrastructure report was completed by a conglomerate of engineers and engineering societies.

00:17:37.580 and it had very poor grade for Canada.

00:17:40.920 And that came out in 2019 and has much been done since.

00:17:44.400 No, as Calgary is a highlight.

00:17:47.160 And that 470,000 kilometers is a prime example.

00:17:50.540 We have an immense amount of infrastructure in Canada

00:17:54.080 and that's been paid very little attention to.

00:17:56.820 And as I outlined in the article,

00:17:59.540 a lot of this infrastructure is put into the ground

00:18:01.740 never to be seen or heard from again.

00:18:04.160 And it's sort of the classic out of sight,

00:18:06.200 out of mind mentality.

00:18:08.060 And unfortunately, that doesn't work when it's critical infrastructure.

00:18:11.740 Yeah, well, and another aspect, people want to talk about even less than the water going in, but it's the water going out.

00:18:16.820 And it's not just Calgary or North America or, you know, Canada has a problem.

00:18:20.800 You pointed out the Washington example where effluent leaked in a massive amount.

00:18:26.320 And that poses a huge public health risk and an environmental catastrophe.

00:18:31.740 How old are our sewage pipes getting in our cities?

00:18:34.440 Same age.

00:18:35.320 You know, in Edmonton, where I live, a lot of the infrastructure was built, you know, 100 plus years ago in some areas.

00:18:42.700 And, you know, a huge build out happened in the 60s and 70s.

00:18:45.840 So the water pipe is aging every on all levels.

00:18:49.960 And it was found out that PCC pipe in Calgary, that was the issue.

00:18:54.760 That was a problem sort of decade from 1972 to 1984.

00:18:59.080 before all of that pipe throughout North America was massively problematic for both water and

00:19:05.160 wastewater. You know, the city of San Diego in the States, too, has had massive ruptures and

00:19:10.160 issues with their water, both water and wastewater distribution system. So this isn't a Canadian 1.00

00:19:16.560 problem. This isn't a municipal problem. This is a massive North American problem that's been

00:19:21.540 overlooked, largely. And it's something that's so critical. However, in Canada, like I said,

00:19:27.260 it's even more critical because we as a society in our socialized country depend solely on it.

00:19:33.140 We don't have other suppliers to provide us water or wastewater. And when wastewater goes wrong,

00:19:38.920 it goes very wrong for our watersheds. Absolutely. Well, I mean, on a micro version of it,

00:19:44.160 I live on an acreage and I have a septic system that I had to spend a lot of money to rebuild

00:19:48.420 because when that failed, it wasn't pretty. That's just to say that. And that's just one

00:19:54.000 households. So if you get a million houses suddenly flooding, uh, an area with that,

00:19:57.680 it could be bad getting onto the solution in the things though, I guess, I mean, part of what you

00:20:02.700 covered is, is this has been reported, you know, the, the Calgary, uh, investigation found that

00:20:08.760 they've been, there've been warning flags put up. They've talked about this over years or in

00:20:12.660 Waterloo, you pointed out, you know, they've been running right on the edge of capacity

00:20:15.980 for a long time. And again, the guys in the plants and so on, I think are telling city officials,

00:20:21.880 hey guys, we got something coming, but they aren't being listened to. Is there ways we could

00:20:26.680 change policy maybe to make it so that this reporting is public or something to force the

00:20:31.160 issue to happen? Absolutely. And I think there's a huge misinformation. And my interview that I

00:20:36.720 included in the article with Tim Cartmel, who is a former councillor here in Edmonton and ran for

00:20:42.120 mayor last year, pointed out that generally council is full of generalists. And like you said at the

00:20:46.640 outset, they want to cut ribbons. They want to name buildings after themselves and pat themselves

00:20:51.720 on the back. And they don't, I think a big part of it is they don't understand what they don't

00:20:57.360 understand. And it's easier to glorify these passion projects than it is to talk about maybe

00:21:04.620 things that they fully don't comprehend or that are truly out of sight, out of mind. So I think

00:21:10.380 it's many things. I think we have to educate the electorate. And that was really what I wanted to

00:21:15.040 do with this article is to have people understand that it's a very complicated system to get water

00:21:19.680 to your tap. We also have to make sure that we are, with that information, we are making the

00:21:25.380 correct decisions at the ballot box. And unfortunately, the election in Edmonton last

00:21:30.980 fall did not, I don't think, go very well for the city of Edmonton and for future and for our

00:21:36.040 infrastructure. And then it has to be hugely a massive sort of like public disclosure of the

00:21:43.280 of the systems that we have and the right people managing those systems yeah and then some of it

00:21:49.680 also kind of ties in and it always does in politics or in that world with a little bit of ideology

00:21:54.640 going on densification has been a big push for most municipalities they want to take down the

00:22:00.400 old houses stick in some infills keep building upwards but often they aren't expanding the

00:22:06.320 underground infrastructure to be able to handle that denser intake and we've got some politicians

00:22:12.560 well motivated on never wanting to put up any roadblocks that might stop any of that densification

00:22:16.400 uh is there ways though that are cost effective to upgrade i guess those utilities in those older

00:22:22.380 areas that are densifying how can we avoid over pressuring existing stuff it's a huge problem and

00:22:28.920 i think a lot of this um infill scope that came out i mean it's it's pushed by cmhc and the federal

00:22:35.620 government and all levels and it has massive ramifications for municipalities and the citizens

00:22:41.340 that live in them like i said in the article you know these cities and municipalities were designed

00:22:46.540 in the past for growth for expansion but not for one house in a single family neighborhood being

00:22:52.380 turned into 10 properties which is happening just down the street from me and so that kind

00:22:57.180 of densification has massive ramifications and all of this infrastructure is below our houses our

00:23:02.780 roads, our waterways, too. So it's very challenging to address it and to improve them. And also,

00:23:12.340 too, for wastewater specifically, if you have too large of a pipe that doesn't have enough

00:23:16.560 flow through it, it actually is worse in some cases because the H2S and the methodologies

00:23:23.160 within the wastewater can actually deteriorate the concrete faster. So we have to size things

00:23:27.660 up properly and fix things properly. But it is a huge money taker from our budget. And I think

00:23:35.640 a big solution potential is to maybe do more localized treatment facilities, wastewater

00:23:40.880 treatment facilities. Instead of relying on this massive distribution system, we rely on a much

00:23:46.800 smaller distribution system that's maybe community driven. So one of your solutions, that's kind of

00:23:53.060 the base of your article in the title though, is getting engineers or at least people with some

00:23:57.220 knowledge of these items to get in and run for public office you made clear that's not where

00:24:00.960 you're looking to go uh but i mean there's one of the challenges i see that in the oil field too we

00:24:05.720 got engineers they hit the top levels of oil companies engineers are a special breed i mean

00:24:10.640 we appreciate you guys you you do very important things that are fantastic but at that same time

00:24:16.340 you're not necessarily the most outgoing folks i don't want to throw stereotypes there's all kinds

00:24:20.920 of engineers but uh or people that are interested in going into elected office you don't get your

00:24:25.920 degree in engineering with an intent of going into those sorts of positions so how do we I guess

00:24:32.040 bring in some of those people into our councils how do we encourage them to come in and put their

00:24:35.840 names forward so we can get a better skill set in there absolutely I think that's a huge problem

00:24:40.860 and I think there is this notion I think I'm a relatively atypical engineer I see the gray area

00:24:48.080 a little bit more in my softer skills too but I think at the root of it engineers are problem

00:24:53.340 solvers, and that's who we need running municipalities and these governments. And we

00:24:57.760 need people who are driven by rationality and not passion to run these systems. And so I think a

00:25:04.980 part of it is having engineers at a consulting level that can educate and inform properly,

00:25:10.640 having maybe the management and ownership of these infrastructures, like sort of a system like

00:25:15.280 EPCOR does here in Edmonton, where the experts are in control of the day-to-day running of it.

00:25:20.060 But still, even at the decision making level, we need people who are informed and whether that's an educational piece, a consultant who is there for counsel to answer questions, to explain things to counsel, to urge and make them understand the importance of these things.

00:25:36.480 That's really what we need to go back to. And I think we really need to go back to the basics.

00:25:39.920 I mean, we got so far in left field in the recent years with sustainability and DEI measures that took massive funding away from our critical infrastructure.

00:25:49.680 And we need to refocus that immediately to get back on the right track.

00:25:54.080 Well, I think part of that could be making sure with these utilities, the politicians can't get their grubby fingers on it in the first place.

00:25:59.920 You pointed out, again, showed with Calgary, the water utility, people pay their water bills and it's led to surpluses that the city of Calgary has been quietly siphoning out of there over $100 million a year for a decade.

00:26:14.260 You know, people are in shock now at the cost of what it's going to cost to fix that infrastructure.

00:26:18.100 Well, if we'd have been spending that $100 million a year on keeping this stuff up, we probably wouldn't have seen geysers in the middle of Bonesse in the middle of winter.

00:26:26.300 but of course then they wouldn't be able to dedicate that money as you said to weird DEI

00:26:30.220 projects and vanity projects. Exactly but what would we be without bike lanes you know and that

00:26:36.680 hundred million dollars a year could have gone to massive improvements and upgrades and everything

00:26:43.340 necessary. I mean Waterloo like you pointed out they basically have no more water and they knew

00:26:47.600 that their water treatment facility was aging you know so they should have been spending the money

00:26:51.740 there and when you see these things um come out like like in this article that calgary has been

00:26:56.380 siphoning off a hundred million dollars a year from this critical infrastructure to other things

00:27:01.260 that's the problem and that's the piece that we really need to have people woken up to and really

00:27:07.260 hold the councils and the mayor's feet to the fire to make sure that they're making the appropriate

00:27:12.940 decisions i mean i see like the sustainability thing is a massive passion project for me to

00:27:18.620 educate people on the risk that it presents and the amount of money that it has taken away from

00:27:25.360 our critical infrastructure is incredible. So somebody broke out of the mold and you

00:27:31.700 showed a positive example in Regina. A mayor has been elected with an engineering background and

00:27:38.060 as his campaign has been to address these sorts of issues, has he been making good progress on

00:27:43.920 that so far? He has generally and we had a great conversation while I was writing this article

00:27:48.600 And it was great to talk to someone who is an engineer and has that kind of mindset, but also his managerial skills, obviously, to be a mayor.

00:27:56.200 I mean, he took his project management skills to a much broader scope, being the mayor of Regina.

00:28:03.840 And it seems like they're on the right track.

00:28:05.620 And they just released a few months ago a new policy and strategic growth plan for the city of Regina that really addresses a lot of this scope, that they are only doing infills and upgrades to apartments and other densification in key areas where the infrastructure already exists or can be easily accessible to upgrade properly.

00:28:29.640 And I think that's a perfect example of the practicality that engineers and the mindset of engineers bring to a municipality.

00:28:38.820 So one other element, just to kind of wrap things up, you didn't cover too much in this, but you can speak to as an engineer.

00:28:44.460 What about means of conservation?

00:28:46.160 Like we've been pretty wasteful with how we use water as consumers.

00:28:49.440 We're spraying treated water on our lawns.

00:28:51.900 We're not necessarily making sure that we're not leaking in our toilets or our households, things like that.

00:28:57.540 good common sense things we could do. Is there room to change, I guess, some of the way

00:29:03.220 consumers and the way it's provided so that it can encourage just less use of water?

00:29:08.420 Absolutely. And this is the sustainability piece that I wish we had focused on instead of

00:29:13.220 solar farms and wind turbines. I wish that we had looked at actually practical things like water.

00:29:19.440 And I have preached for years and now starting to publicly that we need to address water. Without

00:29:26.560 water we have nothing uh without proper treatment of water we have nothing we've destroyed our

00:29:31.600 watersheds and we've seen this in other countries in the world and we can't get to that point

00:29:36.240 so it's understanding what i call true sustainability sustainability that actually

00:29:41.440 affects our day-to-day um more so than putting solar panels on our roof uh we need to look at

00:29:46.880 exactly what you're saying like what we're putting on our lawns that's reaching our watershed and

00:29:50.880 part of that is education that people need to understand that all of that runs downhill the

00:29:56.080 water runs downhill and that dilution is is no longer an effective solution to dealing with

00:30:02.160 runoff and wastewater and and all of those issues and this this goes on and on and on and on like

00:30:07.600 looking at pfas and other chemicals that we're putting in our water just with our dishwasher

00:30:12.080 pods for example and microplastics and there's so much there that we should be focusing on that's

00:30:16.800 actual sustainability and actual resilient resiliency of our systems that's not led by

00:30:22.000 DEI and the sort of woke narrative we've been under the guise of for so long yeah I think most

00:30:28.640 conservatives like good con common sense conservation not bizarre aspirational 87

00:30:33.680 billion dollar climate change plans like former mayor Gondek threw at us out here uh fed I could

00:30:40.500 go on on a whole separate show on that I think I have all right well we've run that time out I

00:30:44.820 really appreciate actually coming on to talk about this because it's it's the unsung story that we

00:30:49.600 don't talk about until the water is jetting up from underground and everybody's then suddenly

00:30:53.760 yelling why didn't anybody warn me it was coming well here you are you're warning us and you're

00:30:57.340 offering solutions so i i appreciate that people won't have that excuse to say they weren't told

00:31:03.080 uh you know before i let you go you've written in c2c journal where else can we find uh your work

00:31:08.460 and what you're up to yeah on youtube and on sub stack my name is libertas talks where i talk about

00:31:14.600 all sorts of random things but from a perspective of freedom and uh practicality so thanks so much

00:31:21.080 all right excellent greg thank you i look forward to seeing more of your writings on this uh it's

00:31:25.240 it's important and actually it's not all that dry once you read it it's actually uh pretty

00:31:28.840 interesting stuff thanks so much have a good day thank you so once more guys that's greg wilson

00:31:33.960 he's a professional engineer and we're talking about a story in c2c journal that he put out and

00:31:38.600 i think there was a smaller version on the western standard of it as well and let's see that title

00:31:42.680 if you want to search it out, because it's a long one, and it's a really good read. It says,

00:31:46.760 Busted Flush, Why Your Next Mayor Should Be an Engineer. And part of the whole conversation

00:31:54.180 altogether, and this is a problem with city councils all over the place, they should have

00:32:00.300 a simple mandate. They step so far out of the tracks of where they should be, and then they

00:32:05.580 neglect the core items that just about everybody agrees they should be doing. Garbage collection,

00:32:10.280 policing you know emergency services water of course sewer but i mean i remember in calgary

00:32:17.620 a few years back city council spent a solid week fighting over whether or not to regulate a certain

00:32:22.980 type of fish soup in chinatown i wish i was making a joke about that that's that's where these guys

00:32:28.560 go and again they want their pretty objects they want their waste in calgary what another seven

00:32:33.260 million dollars or something or was it was spent or how many millions like i could be getting that

00:32:36.640 one wrong, to set up a new shrine to the residential school thing. And there was never

00:32:41.020 any residential schools in Calgary because they needed to do something to get a bunch of shoes

00:32:46.140 and stuffies off of the city hall's front steps. They were all put there when the 215 child burial

00:32:52.660 hoax came out of Kamloops residential school. These cowardly city councils more concerned about 0.77

00:32:58.900 being woke and virtue signaling and neglecting the thing they were put there for in the first place. 0.88

00:33:06.640 and they step in on all sorts of other areas uh providing social housing things like that that

00:33:13.120 really wasn't in their wheelhouse and it gets integrated and that's one of the areas where

00:33:19.440 you let that we allow federal control into our municipal governments this was an interesting one

00:33:23.840 that confused a lot of people i think and they got upset but where premier smith was kind of

00:33:28.240 trying to stand between and say no more deals cut between municipalities and the federal government

00:33:32.320 that's not you're not supposed to bridge that and get over there because the federal government then

00:33:37.920 uses that ability to push their social engineering upon the municipalities and an example are those

00:33:43.920 transfers going towards housing in cities because the federal government says we're going to give

00:33:48.480 you a hundred million dollars to the city to help you with housing and infrastructure and things

00:33:52.720 but there's always strings they always say but you've got to do this density target or you've

00:33:57.600 got to do that policy or you've got to do this or you got to do that and then if anybody complains

00:34:02.960 about these policies they say well we'd be throwing away that money from the government

00:34:06.000 we can't risk having that investment coming in that's what they're talking about with the

00:34:09.520 the density discussions in calgary when they did the the mass rezoning the the they said well we

00:34:16.640 might lose all those ottawa dollars well then our system is broken if our cities aren't allowed to

00:34:22.560 to do their planning as they please, as their mandate says, because they would lose federal

00:34:27.920 dollars, they'd become dependent on them. We got to be asking why our cities are dependent on those

00:34:31.220 federal dollars. Why is the federal government stepping in on these municipal issues? So we

00:34:39.340 really, and I know it's easier said than done, we got to get people in office, and that's what Greg

00:34:44.000 was saying, that are going to focus on these core issues that are more important, even if they're

00:34:49.080 not that exciting, even if they're not that romantic, and get back to those basics. Just

00:34:54.040 want to make sure our garbage is getting picked up. You know, we want to make sure our sewage

00:34:57.880 isn't leaching into our underground areas, or even worse, boiling up on our streets like the

00:35:03.920 freshwater supplies were. You know, are the buses running? How about policing? You know, how about

00:35:09.860 Crackhead Alley downtown? There's a lot of big issues that they could spend a whole heck of a

00:35:15.160 lot of time on. In fact, they should. And changing the type of person running for these positions

00:35:21.480 would be a way to do it. And it was great to see, as I said, the mayor of Regina,

00:35:25.240 he ran on infrastructure and those issues. And guess what? They're not necessarily as unexciting

00:35:30.160 as one would think because it won them an election. So let's get back to the world of the

00:35:34.280 wall, okay? Justice. This is great. Just great. We got a judge and we're seeing these stories

00:35:41.460 constantly, and I've talked about that. I've written columns on this. If you're not familiar

00:35:45.800 with the Gladue Principles, basically, I'm not going to go through the whole thing. It came about

00:35:50.200 20-some years ago, saying that we have to take Indigenous status into effect when sentencing in

00:35:57.560 jail. Basically, give them lower sentences whenever possible, because there's overcrowding 0.99

00:36:01.600 or overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the jails. They thought, well, if we just don't

00:36:04.980 sentence them, it won't become a problem. Well, since then, they have still managed to overpopulate

00:36:10.080 prison system because it doesn't address the social problems underneath it but worst of all

00:36:14.800 it's letting some very dangerous people loose when they shouldn't be in the end it's victimizing 0.85

00:36:20.880 here's the irony the indigenous people themselves because most of the violent indigenous offenders

00:36:25.440 offended against other indigenous people there's some of the good irony a with your mmiw most of

00:36:31.280 it was other indigenous folks who made the mmiws out there let's address that let's look at the

00:36:36.800 social thing but instead we get this the judge said colonization of course was the reason an

00:36:43.760 indigenous man got a reduced sentence for choking a toddler he strangled a baby and the judge thinks

00:36:53.200 well yeah but colonization so let's let him out earlier and maybe just hope he doesn't get his 0.90

00:36:57.200 hands on any more kids i guess hey this we hear all the time particularly with sex offenders coming

00:37:03.120 I mean, enough, enough.

00:37:05.700 I don't care about the colonization. 0.55

00:37:07.480 I don't care about the settlerhood. 1.00

00:37:08.960 All I care about is these are identified dangerous people 1.00

00:37:11.000 who have committed bloody crimes

00:37:12.180 and they should stay behind bars 1.00

00:37:13.240 and I don't care what color they are. 0.99

00:37:15.980 Public safety has to be paramount.

00:37:18.840 What is it?

00:37:19.720 Here's another beauty. 1.00

00:37:20.580 This one isn't indigenous. 0.98

00:37:21.740 Don't worry. 0.99

00:37:22.260 I mean, the race-based policies we seem to have

00:37:27.820 in our justice system aren't just for the Gladue cases.

00:37:31.560 So that's the worst of it. 0.96

00:37:32.520 This one here, Canadian terrorist.

00:37:34.560 Some might remember he burst into a recruitment service and stabbed soldiers in Canada.

00:37:40.340 Ali Hassan did this in 2016 in Toronto, attacks and stabbed a bunch of people.

00:37:47.780 He said Allah told him to do it. 0.98

00:37:49.740 Yeah, Allah's a prick. 0.97

00:37:51.240 And he has been let out. 1.00

00:37:54.300 He's been loose since then.

00:37:55.600 Very, very dangerous man.

00:37:56.760 And now he's going to be flying to Saudi Arabia to do a pilgrimage in Mecca.

00:38:03.700 And then he's going to Somalia for an arranged marriage.

00:38:06.600 I guess they found a cousin for him.

00:38:09.000 Why is this man not in jail? 1.00

00:38:10.280 He's a lunatic. 1.00

00:38:11.000 He's a terrorist. 1.00

00:38:11.800 He stabs people. 1.00

00:38:13.240 No, he's going over to get some poor young woman who's been arranged as a marriage so he can, I don't know, do whatever he's going to do to her. 0.98

00:38:20.940 Yeah.

00:38:22.220 Why?

00:38:23.420 Well, it was brought into account.

00:38:25.040 He's been talking to an imam in jail.

00:38:27.000 He's feeling much more settled 0.99

00:38:28.180 because nothing helps a person

00:38:31.000 become more settled and peaceful

00:38:32.320 than a better immersion in Islam, right?

00:38:34.460 That's been working all around the world real well.

00:38:37.080 How about this?

00:38:38.060 Why don't we just make his ticket a one-way one

00:38:39.640 and he can stay the hell over there?

00:38:40.880 That would be nice, wouldn't it?

00:38:42.140 No, we can't do that.

00:38:43.060 This is Canada.

00:38:46.000 What are some of the other beauties?

00:38:47.260 Has anybody seen our new rocket launch site

00:38:50.060 there out on the East Coast?

00:38:51.680 Newfoundland uh oh no that's a different one I'm looking at other east coast things

00:38:55.460 Newfoundland Labrador's got a thing going on as well but yeah there's a launch pad

00:38:59.440 that uh out in the east coast I think it's Nova Scotia actually these scammers if you look into

00:39:05.680 it there's a there's a good article on it out there uh they've got a 200 million dollar lease

00:39:11.100 on this chunk of barren land all it's got's a gravel road up to a concrete pad and they're

00:39:15.640 calling it the next Cape Canaveral they're going to be launching rockets from there

00:39:20.340 the whole property itself is worth maybe 18 million dollars if they just bought it but

00:39:27.480 instead we're going to lease it for 200 million dollars because Canada wants its own little

00:39:32.000 rocket land because we don't want to be relying on the United States for it but there's other

00:39:35.680 problems there's a reason other countries lease space near the equator for their launch sites

00:39:42.280 because up north it doesn't work out all that well but that doesn't stop again these stories

00:39:47.300 that keep coming, whether it's in Alberta with internet setups or rocket pads or arrive can app

00:39:54.900 items. There's just a whole lot of people making a whole lot of money out of your tax dollars for

00:39:59.160 these handouts that are being given. And the names of the people involved in that rocket

00:40:03.440 pad out in Nova Scotia have some pretty shady history already. Some have, you know, had issues

00:40:10.720 and licenses pulled and things like that. But off we go, right? Brilliant. Brilliant. Feisty

00:40:16.900 you're probably saying, you know, Alberta independence is the way to go. Yes. I believe

00:40:20.920 so. I've talked about that, but we got to remember, we got to be better than them. And that's why I

00:40:24.620 wanted to start my rant out talking about this internet thing. Cause Hey, you know what? Our

00:40:27.520 provincial governments can be just as bad as the federal ones. We need better controls. So if we're

00:40:33.040 going to become independent, let's have those discussions to make sure why would we be better?

00:40:35.860 Or are we going to be making a smaller version of what we just left? Got to clean up our own act.

00:40:40.260 In fact, selling independence will be a heck of a lot easier if we can keep the high horse when

00:40:45.220 it comes to that okay back to dei yeah this is a beauty newfoundland labrador is only university

00:40:52.260 has five academic job postings yet they explicitly say no straight white men

00:41:00.180 no straight white men you have these jobs only there's no way they're going to hire anybody

00:41:06.280 unless they fall under the two s lgbtqia plus people no nmiw i guess in that one or whatever

00:41:14.260 and whatever other symbols they want to stick in.

00:41:16.740 If you are not one of those, you will not be hired.

00:41:20.180 Don't waste your time.

00:41:20.920 Don't even show up.

00:41:22.860 This is good.

00:41:23.540 This is really the institutions of higher education.

00:41:25.960 This is going to make our next generation come up better.

00:41:28.420 And these positions at the university are in programs of AI-driven navigation,

00:41:36.540 computational biochemistry, genomic mapping, indigenous knowledge,

00:41:39.940 yeah uh community health and substance use well i don't know i mean i think if you're an applicant

00:41:47.260 and you still want to go for one of these things and everything else just swallow a little pride

00:41:52.140 and use ai you can do all sorts of things with your pictures just if you need to even prove that

00:41:57.560 and just tell them you're gay or bisexual show a couple pictures you created see look at this look

00:42:02.220 at this stuff i did in college i'm one of the letters you got there so i can now qualify to 0.74

00:42:07.300 And it's sad that you have to do that, but it's easier to get away with falsely identifying as

00:42:13.520 LGBTQIA plus and all that than trying to falsely identify as black. They usually see right through 1.00

00:42:18.540 that one, though I wouldn't put it beyond them to get confused with that one too. But this is where

00:42:22.760 we're going. So this is being, our kids are going to be getting a better education. Of course not

00:42:26.580 because they're hiring based on where somebody lands on their woke DEI victimhood alphabet.

00:42:32.840 we need to move on to a full private education system we do an in post-secondary as well just

00:42:40.200 keep all that crap out of it let people choose on getting the best they can finally here's another

00:42:46.040 beauty canada's rcmp and this is in the western standard story partnering with the chinese police 0.84

00:42:52.040 that they very secret about what that means exactly in partnering with the chinese police

00:42:56.840 now people seem to forget china is a communist dictatorship that has no interest in human rights

00:43:07.580 and they've been victimizing chinese immigrants to canada people even have canadian citizenship

00:43:13.580 they've been threatening them antagonizing them and they've had those chinese police stations on

00:43:18.660 canadian soil intimidating them this is how they've been doing their election interference

00:43:23.760 and things and everything how if they're approached if there's people who've come here from china and

00:43:29.120 then find out they're getting pressured by chinese agents over here what are they going to do go to

00:43:36.880 the rcmp well the rcmp are partnered with the chinese communist police as well so you're not

00:43:42.160 feeling safe going anywhere brilliant mr carney look i'm not one of those people say we should

00:43:48.560 have no relations with china whatsoever we got economic realities china supplies us with a

00:43:54.480 massive amount of goods it's a big trading partner to shut it all off altogether would 0.99

00:43:59.440 be really problematic but we also have to put up some pretty big guard rails when we deal with them

00:44:05.600 one of which is having our national police force having absolutely nothing to do with those

00:44:09.600 communists partnering with them for what are the rcmp going to help identify which ones to target

00:44:17.200 hey look at this guy over here he hasn't been saying the right things what what on earth is

00:44:21.920 the rcp going to partner with them about yet here they are uh one other thing follow alex zolton

00:44:29.440 he's our bc reporter it's been something else to watch david eb he's been flopping like an

00:44:34.480 epileptic fish out of water under a strobe light trying to figure out what to do with his drippa

00:44:39.680 and indigenous policy this blowing up in his own face if you want to see government at its worst 0.99

00:44:44.960 in immersing itself in a bunch of dei woke crap and garbage particularly in indigenous issues 0.99

00:44:50.800 look at all the joy david eby and the unfortunate british colombians who are stuck under his 0.99

00:44:54.800 leadership are dealing with over there right now zoltan's been doing a great job covering

00:44:59.520 all of that all right well that's what i've got for today i think josh he got through this without

00:45:04.160 screwing up i really appreciate that and thank all of you guys for tuning in be sure to follow

00:45:09.120 the pipeline that's going to be on a little later this evening and like and share all of those

00:45:13.360 those things there's all sorts of productions coming out hanaford and leah does stuff get on

00:45:17.640 there the western standard channels this is the source for news for you guys so uh thanks again

00:45:23.280 for tuning in we'll see you next week at this time

00:45:43.360 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - April 23, 2026

Alberta’s ridiculous high-speed internet scheme is robbing taxpayers

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