Western Standard - October 30, 2025


Bring on right to work legislation!


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

189.42815

Word Count

8,756

Sentence Count

488

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good day.
00:00:29.480 welcome to the cory morgan show it was nice to be gone but it's good to be back too boy
00:00:34.380 no shortage of news breaking and happening and going on in this uh time that i've been gone
00:00:40.640 funny i only missed one show but it feels like i've been gone forever i am back and thank you
00:00:45.580 very much to lindsey wilson for filling in even though she did dredge up that picture from my
00:00:50.940 mullet covered history in the past but she did a fantastic job filling in on here i always get a
00:00:56.700 self-conscious when somebody fills in because people look and realize hey maybe maybe we can
00:01:00.760 replace him with somebody better to look at for these shows either way you're still stuck with me
00:01:03.980 for now get over it so yeah we got a packed show as always like i said so much breaking in the news
00:01:09.880 so much going on i've got a guest coming on larry maury's going to be on a little while these people
00:01:15.320 are wondering what the heck were you doing over in israel cory what's going on with that well let's
00:01:18.680 just bring the founder of the exigent foundation on to explain what was going on and why i went
00:01:24.760 over there and what these guys are up to. Because unfortunately, believe it or not, a few of you
00:01:30.400 folks out in my viewership and such are kind of of the conspiracy-minded sort, and I've been hearing
00:01:35.440 some interesting things. You know what? Let's just talk about things in the open and explain it.
00:01:39.080 There's no crazed Zionist conspiracy. It was a fantastic trip. I learned a lot, and we will
00:01:44.300 talk a lot about it. All right, let's start out about more domestic news for now, though. Strikes.
00:01:50.520 They've been crippling Canada for years. You know what? It's time we had it out with the unions.
00:01:54.560 They've become too empowered, arrogant, and greedy
00:01:56.480 thanks to decades of governments pandering to organized labor
00:01:59.240 rather than reasonably and firmly negotiating with it.
00:02:02.620 Canada's productivity has been lagging
00:02:04.120 and it's reflected in the sagging GDP per capita numbers.
00:02:07.300 It's also difficult to draw domestic investment into domestic industries
00:02:10.960 when unions are rampaging unchecked.
00:02:13.560 I mean, the list of damaging labor actions
00:02:15.160 just in the last couple of years is long and ugly.
00:02:17.900 Dock workers, rail workers, airline workers,
00:02:20.040 federal civil servants, postal workers.
00:02:23.240 I see that worker all the time, but they don't work a hell of a lot, it seems.
00:02:26.400 But they've all harmed the Canadian economy,
00:02:28.640 with only the postal workers not managing to garner big settlements for their actions.
00:02:32.220 There isn't much that can be done on the federal front.
00:02:34.580 Carney's averse to taking strong stances in general as he tries to borrow Canada into prosperity.
00:02:39.640 He hasn't the fortitude to battle with labour unions.
00:02:43.000 Legislation brought by the Trudeau government banning replacement workers
00:02:45.720 and federally regulated industries has tipped the power so heavily into the union hands
00:02:49.780 that payouts come hard and heavy once a strike is threatened.
00:02:52.520 In Alberta though we can change the balance of power. This province can follow in the footsteps
00:02:57.260 of 27 American states and embrace right-to-work legislation. The right to organize with a union
00:03:03.080 is an important one. The right to choose not to participate in a union must be entrenched as well
00:03:07.860 though. Closed shops which force people to join a union whether they like it or not are an affront
00:03:12.680 to the right of free association and they empower unions far too much. The stranglehold on some
00:03:17.820 industries and the public sector in general has to be broken. And there's no better way to do that
00:03:23.420 than allow employees to choose. Giving employees the choice with union membership forces unions to
00:03:28.500 become competitive. They'll suddenly have to be accountable to their members who they take dues
00:03:33.200 from and prove that they offer value to those employees. Members tired of seeing a chunk of
00:03:37.740 their wages being taken from by a union to use in woke lobbying and taking political stances
00:03:43.000 unrelated to their workplace can opt out. Regions with right to work legislation see economic
00:03:48.720 benefits on all levels and the American example proves that. Over a 10-year average, states with
00:03:53.180 right to work legislation saw a 10% private sector job growth, while states without it saw a 6.1%
00:03:58.840 growth. Investment moves towards those states and industries not hamstrung by overpowered unions
00:04:04.040 and they were able to expand their operations. Real manufacturing GDP growth in the right to
00:04:08.260 work states was 18.4%. In the non-right-to-work states, it was 12.7%. Ontario, with its ailing
00:04:15.180 manufacturing sector, should be keeping this in mind. After-tax income growth in right-to-work
00:04:21.700 states was 21.3% versus 16.8% in states without it. That's a big one. Unions like to claim
00:04:28.100 raises only come through union pressure, yet in the states where employees have the option to
00:04:31.820 directly negotiate their own compensation, the employees garner more money. Well, at least the
00:04:36.360 competent ones do. The reason they take home more after tax is because the state government can
00:04:40.740 operate more efficiently without being controlled by unions, so they don't need to tax as much.
00:04:45.640 Kansas and Missouri offer a great example. They're right next to each other. The cost of living is
00:04:49.540 similar. The median household income in Kansas, though, where there's right to work legislation,
00:04:54.000 is thousands of dollars a year higher than Missouri, which is right across the river.
00:04:57.440 The poverty rate in Kansas is 11.1%. They're high, but it's still lower than 13.4% in Missouri.
00:05:03.120 The stronger economy fostered through employee empowerment with right-to-work legislation serves everybody.
00:05:09.720 States with right-to-work legislation experience 48% fewer workdays lost due to strikes.
00:05:14.800 Employees make more money while citizens aren't chronically held hostage with strikes.
00:05:19.080 Everybody wins, at least everybody aside from the union executives who profit on labor unrest.
00:05:23.300 So in Alberta, Gil McGowan heads the Alberta Federation of Labor.
00:05:27.220 His organization takes a little bite out of the wages of almost every union member in the province,
00:05:31.060 and he has guaranteed spots on the executive of the NDP.
00:05:34.920 Gill's threatening a general strike
00:05:36.560 over the back-to-work legislation
00:05:38.360 the UCP government just imposed on teachers.
00:05:40.160 He wants to punish all Albertans
00:05:41.960 and keep the children from the schools
00:05:43.960 while the strike's going on.
00:05:45.500 McAllen's an old-school union thug.
00:05:48.280 He isn't exactly nuanced or cerebral
00:05:50.080 and he prefers conflict rather than negotiation.
00:05:53.080 So the picture you'll see when my column comes out
00:05:55.760 and we've seen it many times in the Western Standard
00:05:57.300 of him getting in the face of one of our reporters
00:05:58.900 kind of demonstrates his nature.
00:06:00.700 Let's indulge old Gil, though. Dare him to have over 300,000 union members walk off the job in
00:06:06.160 Alberta. Let them show the millions of Albertans who pay their bills just how entitled and
00:06:11.760 belligerent these unions are. That sort of walkout would set the stage perfectly for Premier Smith
00:06:16.500 to table and pass right-to-work legislation. Let those who want to work choose to work. All of
00:06:21.720 Alberta would be better for it, and Gil will suddenly have to serve his members rather than
00:06:25.400 blow dollars with self-serving protests. Business and investment will move to Alberta while entitled
00:06:29.680 union types will flee. I can't think of a better outcome. If the courts feel the legislation isn't
00:06:34.100 constitutional, well, we have the notwithstanding clause and we've shown we're not afraid to use it.
00:06:38.080 So bring it on, Gil. Bring it on. All right. That's my rant. I'm sure that'll keep the union
00:06:42.840 folks happy today. Hey, Dave, how's it going? It's going well. Gil's a beauty, isn't it? Oh,
00:06:46.520 Gil's a piece of work. I love tweaking his tail feathers. Absolutely. So welcome back.
00:06:50.380 Thanks. Israel is a wonderful country. It's incredible. You had Larry and Jeff and Meyer
00:06:55.480 showing you around the length and breadth i did yes so we have a shared experience it sounds like
00:07:00.760 a good consistent uh agenda over there yeah well like i see you got larry ounce later on so uh
00:07:05.800 he'll be able to explain it also yeah it's uh it it's you know you put you right in the middle of
00:07:12.040 everything that's going on over there it makes you think and uh you know it's i just you know
00:07:17.560 we've both spent time in israel this year and we can't come up with any answers can we no no answers
00:07:22.200 but a lot more to think on you can't substitute seeing things with your own eyes i mean i'm a
00:07:26.440 voracious reader i read a lot of books but i mean you can learn more in an eight-day trip
00:07:30.360 than in months of reading i'm certain absolutely so glad you had a good time yes all right leading
00:07:36.280 off the news today is a horrible story in england where a man was out walking his dog and came
00:07:41.720 across a african migrant who was smuggled into england illegally in the back of a truck he went
00:07:48.040 on a stabbing spree for some reason stabbed a 14 year old boy and another guy and this this poor
00:07:53.000 dog walker tried to intervene and got stabbed to death so there's been outrage in england about
00:07:59.000 how this can happen and just an awful awful video of it actually happening that is uh is very
00:08:05.640 disturbing uh canada's shame on the international stage continues with uh with president trump uh
00:08:12.600 had a big dinner uh in uh korea today and uh they sat at the same tables round table but i don't
00:08:18.760 think they spoke much and trump tweeted i didn't come to uh korea to see canada so you know and
00:08:26.600 doug ford is still trying to do a damage control in ontario because it was his ad that caused all
00:08:32.360 the problems and yikes what a mess i'm glad i don't work in the ontario manufacturing industry
00:08:38.760 because they're getting hammered yeah doug isn't doing them any favors well subsidizing all those
00:08:44.280 plants and everything look how that's worked yeah exactly uh bank of canada today lowered their
00:08:48.920 interest rates a quarter point to 2.25 so people with variable mortgages uh have a bit more money
00:08:56.040 to spend and uh liam mushit our uh our reporter uh there's a story out earlier this week about
00:09:03.880 climate alarmism and how like two percent of the population actually suffers from it and then
00:09:09.640 affects their health because they're worried they're going to die uh interestingly bill gates
00:09:14.760 came out yesterday and says he doesn't believe we're going to die anymore changed his mind but
00:09:19.400 leah has interviewed michelle sterling who we know and has been on your show several times she's uh
00:09:24.360 with the friends of science and they talk about all this alarmism about climate change so that's
00:09:29.320 up there now for everybody to watch well i'm not too alarmed i mean i i just came from an
00:09:33.160 environment where it was what 21 22 degrees at night and 28 29 in the days and i'm back to this
00:09:38.360 you know frost on my windshield in the morning i say bring on the global warming i i i'm gonna
00:09:42.760 be nervous if we don't change well for the next six months anyways so uh my mom says thank you
00:09:47.400 for the fridge magnets oh well happy to have picked them up i'm glad if you wanted me to pick
00:09:51.480 something up it was a cost effective and small there you go i'm a i'm an easy shopper all right
00:09:56.440 well thanks steve all right say hi to larry for me will do all right so yes guys lots going on
00:10:02.120 that's coming out of our newsroom from our news editor, Dave Naylor. This is the time I like to
00:10:07.080 remind you all, we rely on you for subscriptions in order to be able to bring that news to you,
00:10:13.200 get on the ground, have those reporters like Leah and the others bringing all that content your way.
00:10:18.680 So get on there, westernstandard.news slash subscription. Take one out. It's 10 bucks a
00:10:23.880 month, $100 for a year. And again, I always use that analogy and I'll use it over and over and
00:10:30.540 make it tiresome, but it's true. We never thought twice of paying for a newspaper subscription in
00:10:34.100 the past. This is just the modern way of things. Subscribe to your news outlets. I know you can't
00:10:38.500 subscribe to them all, but I tell you, we'll give you your value for your dollar for it.
00:10:43.220 All right, let's cover a couple more things before I get to my guest. It's in Calgary,
00:10:47.000 something that changed by the time I got back. I'd written a column on it already. It was
00:10:50.420 out there. We've got a new mayor, Jeremy Farkas. I've known Jeremy for quite some time. I know
00:10:57.820 people are concerned. Jeremy's an interesting guy. He was very, very small government conservative
00:11:05.280 when he was a councillor, when he was working with the Wild Rose Party. During his four years
00:11:10.520 after losing the last mayoral election, he kind of started leaning into some woke causes and was
00:11:15.000 hanging out with people like Nenshi and saying some things, you know, even I took issue with,
00:11:19.620 a couple of attacks he made on Premier Smith. But whatever it may be, he worked hard, kept at it,
00:11:27.580 and he managed to win the election and he's the mayor. And I know some people are worried that
00:11:30.900 we've got another woke mayor. Well, let's put some of that to ease though, whatever may be up with
00:11:35.460 Jeremy. For one, I mean, come on, nobody can be, well, he never say never, but the likelihood of
00:11:40.880 him being any worse than Jody Gondek is very slim. He's a pragmatic guy. And think of it this way.
00:11:48.080 I mean, one of the worst things we can have is a hardcore ideologue who never does change their
00:11:51.700 views and never does change their minds. And Jeremy is willing to reevaluate his views on
00:11:58.000 things, even if I don't always agree with his conclusions. We've got an interesting council
00:12:02.300 in Calgary right now. We've lost 10 out of 15 of the incumbents in there. So Jeremy's sitting on
00:12:08.240 top with 10 new people sitting in there. And if you look at the political leanings, our own Mike
00:12:12.840 Thomas from the Western Standard sort of broke it down. We've got basically split half and half
00:12:18.500 between people you would identify as being conservative and people you would identify
00:12:21.600 as being left wing. And Jeremy kind of sits there in the center. And we know from his past actions,
00:12:26.120 he can kind of drop either way. What I would suggest rather than getting upset with Jeremy,
00:12:31.160 because I know some people wanted more conservative candidates, he's going to be the
00:12:33.900 mayor for at least the next four years. He's receptive. I mean, because of the fact that he
00:12:39.300 will go different directions on different issues, it tells you, reach out to him, let him know where
00:12:44.880 you stand on things. Let him know where you would like him to land on issues going in the future.
00:12:50.640 He can be influenced. You know, when you've got a true hardcore ideologue, they can't. They won't
00:12:55.280 move. They won't budge. You can basically script what they're going to do and act with. Jeremy,
00:12:59.900 we don't necessarily know. And one thing I'll say for Jeremy, which I think means more than his
00:13:04.980 policy areas and in knowing him, he is a good person. He really is. He's a smart guy. He dwells
00:13:12.580 on things might not always make the right choice, but he's always genuine. I mean, we've had enough
00:13:18.080 of the self-serving of the corrupt and those types, and I've never seen a glimmer of any of
00:13:23.560 that sort of behavior out of Jeremy. So let's maintain optimism. Perhaps your preferred mayoral
00:13:29.780 candidate didn't win the race this time around, but we've got the council we have right now. We
00:13:34.640 got a lot of big issues to deal with in Calgary, and because it's split the way it is, it can turn
00:13:41.220 out to be one of the best councils we've seen in years. I sure hope so. Or it could turn out
00:13:47.220 terrible and dysfunctional and they'll all be fighting with each other as they can be inclined
00:13:50.860 to. Who knows? But we can have an impact. You can have an impact between elections. Just sitting
00:13:55.900 back and watching is ensuring that somebody else gets the mayor's ear and pushes him perhaps in a
00:14:02.800 direction that doesn't represent you or reflect what you're thinking. And that's the price of
00:14:07.180 apathy, guys. We pay it. So look into things, check things out. Council will be sitting and
00:14:13.100 the municipal budget and all that good stuff will be coming soon. All right, so let's get on with
00:14:17.160 other things. As I said earlier, yes, I vanished for a bit. I don't tend to. I had gone to Israel.
00:14:22.400 I was posting a lot of things from there. Some people were wondering what the heck is Corey
00:14:25.400 doing over there? What's going on? What's this about? And well, it was an opportunity that came
00:14:32.000 about, thanks to the Exigent Foundation and Larry Marr. And, you know, I can't think of a better
00:14:36.880 way to explain it than bring Larry on and talk about what those guys do and why they would
00:14:41.880 sponsor to bring a nutcase like me over to Israel to tour around and look at a few things and learn
00:14:47.580 some stuff. So let's bring Larry in and have a conversation there. Hey, Larry, thanks very much
00:14:52.780 for joining me today. Hey, Corey, how are you? Thank you for having me. Oh, very good. Thanks.
00:14:57.080 I've just recovered from the jet lag, so I'm almost awake now.
00:15:02.000 It's been much better.
00:15:03.440 Great.
00:15:04.480 So, I mean, I guess just to begin with, I'll start with the why.
00:15:08.940 You and Vivian were the founders of the Exigent Foundation.
00:15:12.400 Why did you feel compelled to begin this organization?
00:15:17.000 Well, shortly after, as you know, October 7th, I was seeing what was going on in Ontario
00:15:24.600 and Toronto specifically with a lot of the protests happening and I was speaking to friends
00:15:30.700 and family and I realized that this was going to get a lot worse and some people didn't believe me
00:15:36.360 they didn't really understand why so I decided that I would take a small group of journalists
00:15:42.380 to Israel to basically give them a little bit of an education as to the extremism that
00:15:49.820 surrounds Israel in the Middle East and how it's been here for decades in Canada, in North America,
00:15:57.260 and was going to show its ugly face through our institutions, which we're now seeing through
00:16:03.160 universities, through schools, unions, you name it. And that was the purpose of why we started
00:16:11.720 these missions to Israel. Well, and personally, I mean, I thought it was very effective. I already
00:16:18.320 had my views and opinions but still there's only so much i could know and and as i said to dave
00:16:24.260 just before that with the check-in you can't beat having your feet on the ground talking to other
00:16:28.240 people and just seeing for yourself and i mean i want to you know clarify that with some people
00:16:33.380 i mean you guys weren't there to indoctrinate us i wasn't sitting there being grilled with lectures
00:16:37.240 or or uh you know uh told what to do you you just kind of brought us around and gave us a wide
00:16:42.400 variety of things to see over there yeah i mean we went as you know we went down south we went to the
00:16:47.200 the gaza border we went up north to lebanon syria jordan i mean that was all done within
00:16:52.800 four or five days you see how small the country is you had an opportunity to speak to israelis
00:16:57.440 as well as i believe they spoke to a couple palestinians one that used to live in gaza
00:17:01.680 one now in ramallah and one actually a palestinian uh christian that converted from muslim to
00:17:07.680 christianity i know a couple in the group had an opportunity to speak to um so yeah it's um
00:17:14.320 um it's it's uh it's quite the the experience and eye-opener uh and like i like you just
00:17:21.660 mentioned earlier with dave you can read a book you know and books for days and months but the
00:17:28.140 experience of traveling at least for me uh there's nothing beats that no and and part of what you
00:17:34.860 list on the the site and what you kind of alluded to earlier too i mean a lot of what i've heard
00:17:40.440 from other people is, well, what does it matter to me? What does it mean to me? I'm not worried
00:17:45.240 about that. That's over there. That's their problem. And this extremism is spilling over,
00:17:51.680 as you pointed out, into our universities, into our media over here, onto our streets.
00:17:56.760 In Israel, we got to see the worst possible outcome of it when it's actually spilled out
00:18:00.880 in a massive horrific terrorist attack. But we have to be able to point out to people that we
00:18:06.440 aren't insulated from this. That same ideology is over here, even if it's not as immediately vicious.
00:18:12.240 Exactly. I mean, I brought, I mean, now it's about 50 members from Canadian media across Canada,
00:18:18.460 all different, you know, from BC to Quebec, Ontario, yourself from Alberta, a number of
00:18:26.220 people from Alberta, different walks of life. And they're able to apply the extremism,
00:18:31.560 the these situations that they're happening in their own communities and they see how it's it's
00:18:37.080 coming from the middle east this this extremist ideology you can call it it doesn't matter if
00:18:42.440 it's the far left or the far right they both have these extreme ideologies neither one of
00:18:48.200 them is good and you know the issue that me personally now on a personal level is we don't
00:18:53.720 see very much uh happening in the center and being able to have a dialogue with people on both sides
00:18:58.520 of the aisle it's either it's either one extreme or if you're not on that side it's you're an
00:19:04.440 extremist on on the other side but um you know radical islamists have been for years and um we
00:19:12.360 can look at this as you see through the muslim brotherhood they have been infiltrating our
00:19:17.080 institutions uh and um people need to start waking up and understand what's going on as i've said
00:19:23.640 before in the middle east the violence is very different than the indoctrination that they're
00:19:28.440 using here in the west they do it in a different way they've learned how to latch on to our
00:19:33.480 our liberal ideas and our our our democracies and use those against us unfortunately yeah and and
00:19:40.840 bringing us over there i think at least helped uh for some who might not know necessarily like just
00:19:46.840 it is a liberal democracy over there i mean it's got challenges but it's uh a welcoming place
00:19:52.920 meeting the people i mean tel aviv was something else and something i noticed while walking down
00:19:57.400 the street was a uh uh well a couple of well everybody's beautiful out there it seems but a
00:20:02.760 a couple of nice looking young men uh quite enamored with each other sitting on a bench
00:20:07.080 having a good time that's fine but that couldn't happen anywhere else in the middle east like this
00:20:12.360 bastion of freedom for some people of oppressed minorities i mean if israel disappeared the
00:20:18.520 Middle East is going to be a much worse place. Yeah. I mean, look, they don't, you can go back
00:20:24.720 in history. The Arabs don't necessarily all love each other. I mean, if Israel were to disappear
00:20:28.680 tomorrow, there would still be war in the Middle East. As you saw in Syria, it's unstable there.
00:20:36.620 You have Sunnis and Shiites fighting each other. You have ISIS and Al-Qaeda that are fighting each
00:20:42.920 other. You have factions. You have about 12 different factions, 15 different factions in
00:20:47.740 Gaza that are fighting with each other and with Hamas. I mean, Lebanon is trying to stabilize
00:20:52.800 itself by attempting to disarm Hezbollah. It's just, it's a very, very unstable situation. And
00:21:00.060 you know, Israel, as I mentioned to you before, this is not a mission to
00:21:06.120 talk about politics. You know, every country's got its own issues. You can agree with a government
00:21:13.760 just like our government here or disagree with it.
00:21:16.220 And it's the same for Israel.
00:21:17.620 There it's about the experience of what Israelis are facing
00:21:21.240 as a democracy in the Middle East.
00:21:24.140 And those challenges that they have are coming over here
00:21:29.440 and they've already come here.
00:21:30.760 And hopefully it's not too late to deal with them.
00:21:33.760 And being able to meet different people and talk with them
00:21:36.520 and get perspectives.
00:21:37.920 God, I'm so terrible with names.
00:21:39.080 I should have written in my notes.
00:21:40.160 The gentleman that took us on the tour of the kibbutz
00:21:42.480 and that got hit so hard.
00:21:43.380 We met him at Vivian's place as well.
00:21:46.900 Elon.
00:21:47.860 There we go.
00:21:48.920 And he was so candid with us, though.
00:21:52.380 I mean, it was a gentleman that clearly still hurt, you know,
00:21:55.780 such a vicious, horrible experience, yet quite blatant just saying it's got to end.
00:22:01.300 Like he doesn't want more war.
00:22:03.340 He's saying we've got to find a way out of this.
00:22:06.420 Like that picture some people are pointing that Israelis are vengeful
00:22:10.880 or want this battle to go on.
00:22:12.600 I mean, I imagine there's a handful that are that way, but I didn't meet that.
00:22:16.200 I saw people who were wounded and just wanted resolution, though nobody can quite see exactly how to get there yet.
00:22:22.560 No, exactly. I mean, look, Ilan, you know, staying in Kafaraza, he that particular kibbutz,
00:22:28.660 they used to have Palestinians that from Gaza that would work every day on the kibbutz in a variety of different roles.
00:22:34.620 They were they were getting paid to do it. And, you know, to an extent, they were they were friends.
00:22:39.600 this was going on for years and when you stand there at that gate and you're behind you is the
00:22:45.400 horrors of october 7th and you look straight ahead and you see gaza i mean cory that was your that was
00:22:52.300 your house where he's still not living there he hasn't been living there for two years and you
00:22:57.040 look across i mean there's there's a whole thought i mean even when i look across is how secure is
00:23:04.020 the border right now if I were to move back into my home, into this kibbutz. So I don't know how
00:23:09.720 you felt when you're, when you, when you see the horror around you and you look across and you see
00:23:14.360 Gaza, you know, that there's, there's a lot of uncertainty. Well, that's it. I mean, we, we've
00:23:21.320 never had to experience that in Canada, not that sort of fear. I mean, I guess some people would
00:23:28.040 feel there was a sense of complacency that allowed things to build up as badly as they did in Gaza
00:23:32.100 until it spilled over in that worst possible way with the horrific activities of October 7th.
00:23:38.400 So you can see why there's support to somehow eliminate the threat, somehow eliminate Hamas.
00:23:43.640 And yeah, it's easy to say that, but when you've got, it's not like a conventional war.
00:23:48.340 The people you're fighting against are intermixed among some innocent civilians.
00:23:52.520 How do you pick them out of the bunch?
00:23:54.520 But you can't just leave it.
00:23:55.580 How do people move back?
00:23:56.600 How do people relax again until they feel it's been resolved?
00:24:00.200 It's just such a mire.
00:24:02.100 It is. I mean, a great example of what you're just saying right now is when we spoke to Izam, the Palestinian that now lives in Ramallah.
00:24:10.000 And I believe you asked the question, you said, can you name, asking him, can you name any leadership either in Gaza or in the West Bank,
00:24:18.660 if there was complete peace right now that he could name to govern the Palestinians in either Gaza or the West Bank or both?
00:24:30.420 And what was his answer?
00:24:31.340 He didn't have an answer.
00:24:32.420 There's nobody.
00:24:33.540 And so there's a lot of, there's not only infrastructure problems, there's governing
00:24:36.820 problems, there's corruption.
00:24:38.280 It's been going on, it's been going on for decades and decades and decades.
00:24:43.160 So there's a lot of, you know, issues other than rebuilding Gaza and ending this war.
00:24:51.980 But the Palestinians themselves don't have any clear leadership.
00:24:55.080 I mean, Mahmoud Abbas, he's a terrorist.
00:25:00.440 He's a pay-for-slay.
00:25:01.760 His PhD that he wrote was the denial of the Holocaust.
00:25:07.680 And he hasn't called elections in decades.
00:25:11.020 And the second person that the Palestinians are insisting, even Hamas, that could possibly run would be Marwan Barghouti,
00:25:18.360 who's serving, I think, five or six life sentences in Israeli jail right now.
00:25:22.880 so there's a there's an issue um so i don't know what i don't know what the answer is and um you
00:25:31.460 know i don't know maybe you have maybe you have some suggestions no the the term i've been using
00:25:35.920 other people when they ask about is is i'm like an old you know 486 computer i've got all this
00:25:41.320 input and now it's spinning and processing and processing and processing i i haven't figured
00:25:45.560 out how to i i mean hey uh i'd be making far more money you're in a better position if i was smart
00:25:50.020 enough to find a solution for that. But I'm closer to it. I've learned a lot. Something I
00:25:55.600 thought might show a glimmer on where we should start looking maybe when we drove up through
00:26:00.840 Haifa and Jeff pointed aside, here's the town I live in. And right next door, there's another
00:26:05.800 town with minarets. And it's an Arab town. I mean, people again, forget it's not exclusively
00:26:11.660 Jewish country. 18% of the country is Arab. Those towns, I mean, they're not integrated,
00:26:18.380 but they weren't at each other's throats either.
00:26:22.160 There's got to be room for the communities to live next to each other
00:26:24.900 without trying to kill each other.
00:26:26.040 I imagine attitudes between those two towns are different than those
00:26:28.900 between Gaza and Israel itself, but maybe it's some of those relationships
00:26:32.520 we can start looking at and trying to figure out how we can try
00:26:34.920 and make some of these things work.
00:26:36.480 Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I don't know, I know a little bit
00:26:40.040 what's going on in Alberta, but I can tell you in Ontario,
00:26:42.580 on any given day here, we have protests, not in the hundreds anymore,
00:26:46.780 to be in the thousands, pro-Hamas rallies, pro-terrorist rallies, whatever you want to call
00:26:52.540 them. And I believe, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, there has not been one protest in Israel
00:27:01.180 by any pro-Hamas crowd in any Arab village since October 7th. So this is a problem that's happening
00:27:11.760 here in the west because that's not happening in israel um you know arabs and and and israelis
00:27:19.320 and christians are able and jews are able to live uh side by side um you know they they get along
00:27:26.120 and i'll also point out not only there are no protests in israel uh on two different occasions
00:27:32.960 where i've been in israel on one occasion hezbollah had fired i think it was around 20 rockets while
00:27:37.840 we were heading up north. One of the rockets, a couple of them actually landed in the village
00:27:42.620 next to where we were going, an Arab village, killed, I believe he was 21 years old. One of
00:27:48.720 the journalists had said to myself and another person, what would Hezbollah say knowing that
00:27:55.360 they killed an Israeli Arab? And the answer was they don't care. They don't care if you're Arab,
00:28:01.840 they don't care if you're Christian, they don't care if you're Jewish or what you are, straight,
00:28:06.120 gay, doesn't matter. And the same thing as when we went up north in Megdal Shams. Hezbollah fired
00:28:12.440 rockets, landed in a school yard, in a soccer yard that killed 10 or 12 Druze children while
00:28:20.360 they were playing soccer. These are not Jews. They are targeting anything and anybody in Israel,
00:28:25.560 period. The existence of Israel is not in their vocabulary.
00:28:30.220 No, and I mean, something that really drove me nuts prior to the trip, and even more so now,
00:28:36.260 is the people even trying to soft sell or deny or undercut the atrocities of what happened on
00:28:42.200 October 7th. You know, you could differ with Israeli policy or even, you know, the existence
00:28:47.640 of Israel even, which, you know, I don't, but I mean, so people could, but to try and even slightly
00:28:52.000 justify what happened that day, and I mean, boy, you guys didn't sugarcoat it for us, but we needed
00:28:57.920 to see that for anybody who's seen that horrific video and see the sites, the music festival,
00:29:04.940 the kibbutz. It should change anybody's perspective if they're human. And I think just we need more
00:29:12.780 outreach to people to understand whatever the solution is to this, actions like that can never
00:29:17.360 be accepted. And it's never be a course of action for changing a state. I agree with you 100%. I
00:29:23.140 I mean, Israel is a sovereign state.
00:29:26.180 It's a nation.
00:29:27.000 It's been around since 1948.
00:29:30.180 And it was invaded by a government of Hamas.
00:29:35.360 They sent thousands of people in and invaded a sovereign state.
00:29:40.920 They didn't hold them hostage in Israel.
00:29:42.780 They brought them back across their border, and they've held them hostage even until today, dead or alive.
00:29:48.880 you know any other country in the world that's ever I don't even that's had an invasion like
00:29:55.420 this and people been taken back across the border as a hostage any other country go back and get
00:30:00.000 their citizens they they would do it immediately I mean I don't want to discuss you know the timing
00:30:06.040 of going into Gaza and all that sort of thing but the fact is I mean if Canada went into Buffalo
00:30:11.220 and October 7th happened in Buffalo you can be sure that the United States within seconds would
00:30:17.760 be back over here and collect every last U.S. citizen no matter what happens. And the same for
00:30:23.120 most countries around the world. So this whole narrative that's going on right now to me is
00:30:28.780 absolutely ridiculous, and I don't even entertain it. No, and it's maddening. Thankfully, at least
00:30:34.380 the living hostages are back as horrible as what they had to endure, and hopefully the last of the
00:30:38.820 remains come in. Just a lot of people might not realize just how sacred the remains are for Jewish
00:30:43.860 people as well. I mean, it's sacred for everybody with their family members, but even more so in
00:30:48.240 that case. But either way, I've run up the segment. I appreciate you taking the time. I really
00:30:53.600 appreciate you bringing myself and Dave out there. It was enlightening. I feel I'm better. I don't
00:30:59.420 have the answers, but I'm a little bit closer to it than I had been prior to going. Before I let
00:31:04.520 you go, where can people find information on the foundation to find out more about it or support it
00:31:08.680 anything of that sort they can go to exigentfoundation.org and they will find the
00:31:13.880 information on there and you can send us emails donations whatever they like all right well
00:31:21.400 excellent thank you very much again larry uh hope we get to talk again sometime soon and please keep
00:31:26.040 up that good work for sure thanks cory appreciate it great thank you all right talk to you all right
00:31:31.800 guys yeah just one more time that was larry marr and it's the exigent foundation and you know
00:31:37.320 Now, as I said, some of the feedback, oh, look at that, Corey's been bought off by Netanyahu or he's going to be indoctrinated or he's paid off.
00:31:45.360 Oh, guys, guys, I wouldn't be driving a Hyundai if all that money was really coming in from Israel.
00:31:50.160 No, there was no payment to me, though it was a sponsored trip.
00:31:54.460 I didn't have to pay to go.
00:31:56.620 And I think, you know, this is one of the best ways to deal with things.
00:32:00.760 It's not fighting with media.
00:32:02.280 It's not bitching about unfair coverage.
00:32:05.480 It's not trying to create coverage or create an opinion.
00:32:09.640 It's just saying, look, here, we're giving you a chance.
00:32:12.620 You can come over.
00:32:13.820 We'll take you over to these spots to have a look, to talk to some people and come to
00:32:18.080 your own conclusions.
00:32:21.200 Theoretically, we can only be better for having more information before we write on these
00:32:26.280 things.
00:32:26.580 So as social media influencers, media members, people like myself, this is a good way to
00:32:32.980 do it. Was the group pro-Israel slanted and inclined? Yeah, there's no doubt about that. I
00:32:39.780 mean, I was that way before I went as well, but it doesn't mean I was shielded from other aspects
00:32:45.760 of seeing things. I wasn't controlled about where I could go. I think I've mentioned on this show
00:32:49.960 before, I went to the Soviet Union back in the late 80s when it was still communist. And on that
00:32:54.520 trip, I tell you, that was shielded. That was having a couple of people next to you for every
00:32:57.940 part of the trip. You didn't get to go wandering out on your own, checking things out, speaking
00:33:02.240 to people without your conversations being tightly controlled. This, again, our itinerary was very
00:33:08.740 packed, but we were our own people and we could speak to others candidly. And something that
00:33:15.060 struck me a lot, as I said, talking to other people was just, I mean, these are people that
00:33:20.600 have been so attacked, so violated, and they're hurt. But I didn't see the bitterness I thought
00:33:27.760 I would. I didn't see quite the anger I thought I would or the appetite. Like I said, I didn't see
00:33:33.460 an appetite for vengeance. If anything, maybe just tired. I think they understand it's not over,
00:33:40.740 but at least this chapter is. We came at an interesting time. The last of the living
00:33:44.940 hostages had been returned. We went out to Tel Aviv on the streets that night. And what a vibrant
00:33:49.980 place. You know, this is a nation that's been on and off at war for, you know, since I was born
00:33:55.360 and more recently, even worse. And people are out enjoying themselves, enjoying each other. Maybe
00:34:02.720 it's a terrible way to get it, but maybe people get a better appreciation of life when you've had
00:34:06.900 it threatened so much. But, you know, I'm not seeing a culture that wants violence or wants
00:34:14.600 war, at least not on the Israeli side. I don't want to blanket things. I suspect many, many people
00:34:19.520 in Gaza and other areas want to see an end to this too. They're not exactly having a good time
00:34:23.500 out of this. But that ideology is spawning a heck of a lot more violence and a heck of a lot more
00:34:28.860 intolerance than what we're seeing on the other. There's no clear answer, but seeing the horrors
00:34:36.380 directly, just knowing that this is unacceptable, the world's moving ahead, we're supposed to be
00:34:41.340 getting better, and that chunk is still sorting it out. Remember, we talk about pluralism, we talk
00:34:48.400 about living together and trying to do those things. Well, that's ground zero, guys. That's
00:34:53.320 where the major religions all share a holy spot. And yeah, that's also the spot where there's going
00:34:59.880 to be the most fighting because you're all sharing these holy spots. But if we're going to find
00:35:03.620 solutions, those solutions are going to start over there. And the amount of misinformation,
00:35:09.100 of ignorance, of gross bias, whether it's on university campuses or in legacy media,
00:35:17.220 has just been too much. It's got to be countered. I mean, I'll bring you an example. CTV has been
00:35:23.100 beyond the pale lately on this issue. They've been something else. And even quite a while back,
00:35:28.920 if you're not familiar with the name Vivian Silver, she was very highly regarded out there,
00:35:33.980 was a peace activist from Canada who was out in Israel in a kibbutz. And she was taking
00:35:39.800 Gazans in for medical care to help them out in Israel and things like that. They're very
00:35:45.800 peaceful. I mean, you got to remember the people attacked in these commits and were usually lefties.
00:35:50.400 And what did she get in reward for that? She was slaughtered. She was murdered. Just like the rest
00:35:56.360 when they crossed that border. It was kind of like Larry was talking about. They don't, the ones on
00:35:59.740 that extreme end of the ideology don't care. They just are lashing out. I don't even know if they
00:36:05.920 know what their end might be. But CTV reported that when the remains of Vivian Silver were found
00:36:13.020 and confirmed. And their headline said, Vivian Silver, Canadian peace activist or something,
00:36:19.440 died in Gaza recently. Like, no, she was kidnapped and murdered. They made it sound like she passed
00:36:27.760 away of old age, or she had the flu, or tripped and hit her head. Say it like it is, but they won't.
00:36:35.540 So yeah, I appreciate that somebody at least is trying to bring more out there to see it for
00:36:42.000 themselves. That's all. You know, somebody who should be dragged out there, though, I wouldn't
00:36:45.640 want to be on that trip. Rachel Gilmore. Drag that ditz out there, fly her across, maybe, maybe
00:36:52.220 somewhere behind those vacuous eyes. A little bit will drive home. I mean, just, you don't have to
00:36:58.860 tell her what to think or tell her what to do, but just let her actually see it and quit reading the
00:37:03.700 pap that she regurgitates on her thing. People say we should ignore the Rachel Gilmores. I wish I
00:37:09.240 could. I don't trust. I don't tune into her show, but you still see dribs and drabs. And you got to
00:37:14.060 remember, she has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people watching this drivel she's
00:37:19.660 putting out. So it does have an impact. It does have an influence. And we can't ban others from
00:37:26.360 speaking. That doesn't make us any better than anybody else. But hopefully we can impact and
00:37:30.580 bring about more truth, more rationality in what's a massively irrational situation.
00:37:40.560 All right. I think bring things a little back home again. There's, like I said, so much been
00:37:43.840 going on. I got a backlog going on. We've got a teacher strike. We got the teachers were forced
00:37:47.560 back to school today by Premier Smith with back to work legislation. And then she's taken off to
00:37:53.920 Saudi Arabia. Now look, this trip was scheduled probably a year ago for Premier Smith because
00:37:58.760 people are saying, oh, look at that. She lobs a turd into the punch bowl and then takes off
00:38:02.300 overseas. Well, there's not much more she can do over here, but boy, it's all hitting the fan right
00:38:08.740 now. As I said in my opening, the unions here are going bananas. They're threatening a general
00:38:14.340 strike. There's supposed to be a press conference at 1.30 this afternoon. We'll see what happens.
00:38:21.540 I mean, will this happen? Alberta's never had a general strike before. As I said in my monologue,
00:38:27.720 I don't know. I'm not totally averse to this because maybe it's time to talk about people
00:38:31.080 realizing some hard realities, finding some truth. Premier Smith, my main criticism of her since
00:38:36.020 she's become premier has been that she hasn't cut the civil servants enough. She hasn't brought
00:38:41.320 the budget closer to being under control. We're running a deficit in Alberta. We're supposed to
00:38:44.860 be better than that. Well, maybe if these civil servants walk out and people realize just how
00:38:50.440 little they were bloody well doing, there's going to be a lot more public appetite to say, you know
00:38:54.160 what? I bet we can shave 10% out of there or 15 or 20. They're not going to make themselves more
00:39:00.780 popular with the citizens of Alberta by doing this. We've got a larger culture war going on here.
00:39:07.200 This strike with the teachers because people are scratching their heads and I'm seeing that from
00:39:11.180 Albertans because they were offered a lot of what they claimed they were asking for. They were
00:39:16.620 offered a 12% raise. It would have made them the highest paid teachers in Western Canada. Six
00:39:20.760 figure incomes, summer off, fall off, Christmas off, spring break off. Like I said, you know,
00:39:27.380 Ethel Merman's birthday, you get that off. The teachers seem to get every bloody day off,
00:39:30.920 less and less days they're working every year, more money, huge pension, a commitment to hire
00:39:35.920 3,000 more teachers, a commitment to hire 500 more educational assistants a year, and they turned it
00:39:41.260 down. Why? Well, we're seeing that because what their real fight is, what they're most upset about
00:39:49.420 is the expansion of alternative education,
00:39:53.560 charter schools, private schools.
00:39:55.900 That's where their beef is.
00:39:57.420 They want a monopoly.
00:39:58.600 They want it all.
00:40:00.280 They want the ability to have full control
00:40:02.220 over your children
00:40:03.540 because that's where you start, right?
00:40:05.960 If you can get them when they're being educated,
00:40:08.000 you can impose the ideology.
00:40:09.880 And let's talk about ideological battles, right?
00:40:12.260 What's been going on with this Israel situation,
00:40:14.540 things like that, people on either side of it.
00:40:16.740 Let parents choose.
00:40:17.980 And if a school's being too biased, let them move to a different school.
00:40:23.600 Commenter rucking around, yes.
00:40:27.840 What's my vision of a streamlined government for an independent Alberta?
00:40:30.580 Well, you know, I had Bruce Party on before.
00:40:33.760 He's a law professor from Queen's University, and he's talked a lot about that.
00:40:38.740 He put out a proposed constitution, say, for an independent Alberta,
00:40:42.960 which is probably it would only be a few pages if you printed the whole thing out.
00:40:46.440 very, very limited. He would like to see an absolute minimalist government and then any
00:40:53.820 extra thing the government should do, it should be the reverse order. They have to make the case
00:40:57.580 to us as to why the government should take these things on rather than, you know, we have to have
00:41:02.960 this bloated government and try to beg and fight and scrap to reduce the amount of reach and bloat
00:41:07.480 and expense that they're providing us. I envision maybe nothing quite as stripped down
00:41:12.700 as what Mr. Party is proposing, but yeah, I think we can get away with a heck of a lot less than
00:41:18.880 what we have. I've talked about that before. You know, there's different systems out there. We've
00:41:22.480 got to examine different systems. Canada's system we know is imperfect, far from it, and we can't
00:41:26.980 change the constitution. We know that. We talk about Charlottetown, Meach Lake. Those are modest
00:41:31.560 changes. We failed. So the best chance we have is going independent, and if we go independent,
00:41:37.860 we've got to bring in a system that's new, that's better than whatever we left.
00:41:40.340 One of the main words I would want to use for a new, you know, theoretical fantasy, whatever you want to call it, government for an independent Alberta, the word I want to use, decentralized, decentralized.
00:41:53.780 So even if Edmonton remained the capital, break it all up into Switzerland is a system I like to bring up a lot and compare with.
00:42:03.300 26 cantons, very independent. The federal government of Switzerland does very, very little,
00:42:08.000 very little in the impact on people's lives. It has the military, you know, interstate, you know,
00:42:14.100 intercanton transport, the postal service, currency, just things that must be done by a
00:42:20.040 federal government. Other than that, healthcare, education, housing, all of that stuff, that's all
00:42:26.240 down at the local level. So people with different views in different areas can have things the way
00:42:32.280 they want. There's four languages in Switzerland. We can't even manage to get along with two
00:42:36.760 official languages in Canada, but in Switzerland, they're doing it. Why? Because, okay, well, you
00:42:40.620 can have your language over there, but I have my language over here. And guess what? We don't have
00:42:43.700 to fight over it because you're not trying to make me speak yours and I won't try to make you
00:42:46.280 speak mine. What a crazy concept, eh? This canton over here is a little more socialist. This one
00:42:51.140 over here is a little more capitalist. It doesn't matter. There's no separatist movement going on
00:42:54.620 in Switzerland. Why? Because you're allowing the regional differences. That's one of the areas
00:42:58.380 we're talking about Indigenous needs too. You know, we can address that then. Let's offer
00:43:05.340 essentially cantons to the Indigenous groups, to the reserves in Alberta. Have real self-government,
00:43:12.360 try to move them more towards actual independence. The problem is we're giving them right now a whole
00:43:16.980 lot of authority on these reserves, but we're not imposing the responsibility. With a new system,
00:43:22.200 we could potentially do that, but make the government local. Bring it right down. Now,
00:43:26.760 of the things that disappointed me as I said with the municipal election turnout I didn't say that
00:43:31.400 yet I said that a different interview I was on a thing earlier today uh but I was talking about
00:43:34.840 the municipal election one of these disappointed me was the low low turnout 40 came out this was
00:43:39.960 a turnover of a mayor we turned over a whole lot of people in the civic government in Calgary but
00:43:44.920 fewer than half bothered to come out and do it so if we had uh a new independent Alberta and
00:43:52.440 and a decentralized government and that sort of local thing.
00:43:55.360 One thing, though, the only way it's going to work
00:43:58.200 is it means you've got to get off your ass and take part in it, right?
00:44:00.840 You've got to vote.
00:44:02.420 You've got to take part in policy discussions.
00:44:05.320 You've got to work on these things.
00:44:08.140 And it doesn't instill confidence in me that we would
00:44:10.860 if we can't get up and take part in civic elections in a city
00:44:13.840 as large as Calgary that it had such a terrible mayor to go out.
00:44:18.420 All right, I'll finish off with speaking of all of that.
00:44:20.040 But Fabio Lukasik, yes, Thomas Lukasik, hey, credit where it's due.
00:44:24.380 They pulled it off.
00:44:25.360 They organized well.
00:44:26.400 Who knows where the money and such came from, but they did it.
00:44:28.680 Hundreds of thousands of signatures they presented for their nothing burger,
00:44:32.780 we want to stay in Canada referendum.
00:44:37.920 And now he's saying, well, I don't really want a referendum.
00:44:39.780 I just want to vote in the legislature.
00:44:41.160 But some people have said, well, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:44:43.080 You're going to invoke a referendum.
00:44:45.940 So it will be an independence referendum in a way.
00:44:47.880 It wouldn't be constitutionally binding necessarily, but it would be an independence
00:44:51.740 referendum. He might've gotten what he thought he was fighting. It'll be interesting to see how that
00:44:56.960 all turns out. Problem is though, it wouldn't be binding and it would also be a reverse onus. I
00:45:02.560 think it's harder to campaign on that because those who want independence would actually have
00:45:05.620 to vote no. I think if there's a chance for independence, we have to vote yes, not just,
00:45:11.640 I mean, not yes on his petitioner and his, his referendum, but yes to go. Things have to look
00:45:16.340 positive. We have to be building something better, something new, something that's going to improve
00:45:20.640 things for us. And when you're voting on a no, that's hard to campaign on. It's psychological,
00:45:24.040 but it's a reality to it. But we'll watch that closely and see what's up. Keep an eye on the
00:45:27.960 news. Watch for the pipeline coming up. We're going to be breaking down some more issues with
00:45:32.080 our panel and keep an eye on the Western Standard. As I said, there's some press conferences coming
00:45:36.720 out and things breaking today, and we will have that coverage as soon as it comes out. So thank
00:45:41.400 you for tuning in today guys it's great to be back and i will see you all again next week at this time
00:46:11.400 You