In this episode of the Cory Morgan Show, host Cory Morgan talks with Rob Anderson, a lawyer and former Alberta MP, about the current state of the economy and what it means for the future of the country. He also talks about the recent announcement of a new $500 plan to help people struggling with rising housing prices.
00:06:38.760Yes. Well, Duke and Volstegg and Livy, all three of our goofy hounds in the house, decided to chase a bear away from my beehives the other night at home. It was quite something. They actually made themselves useful for a change.
00:06:52.560And you ran back in and got your shotgun and you didn't kill it though, did you?
00:10:00.100And we've got a good column up there from David Creighton on Global TV's David Aiken's strange meltdown yesterday at a Pierre Polyev press conference where he heckled him, interrupted him, and then at the end of it told Pierre to go F himself.
00:10:19.840So we've got a good column on the fact that Polyev is already causing the media to go crazy.
00:10:27.120This afternoon, we've got some good stuff coming up,
00:10:30.760just about to hit publish on a Center of Disease Control story out of the States.
00:10:37.480Their director has admitted they put out a lot of false information last year.
00:20:28.600C-69, the Court of Appeal of Alberta has already said that that's unconstitutional.
00:20:33.120That's that new environmental assessment agency, essentially, that gives the yes and no to all different projects across the country.
00:20:44.520Well, if we want to build highways here that are more than 75 kilometers long, or we want to build a gravel pit here, or somebody wants to build a different oil and gas development, we don't need the feds to okay that.
00:20:59.780that is the development of natural resources. That is provincial jurisdiction. The feds can
00:21:04.080butt out. And if they have a problem with that, they can sue us in court. But we don't need to,
00:21:08.120especially when it's wholly within Alberta and not crossing provincial lines. We need to defend
00:21:13.620our jurisdiction and our sovereignty. And that's what the Sovereignty Act is meant to do.
00:21:17.580Yeah, well, that's a lot of what I found and what I like about the, I guess, the approach is it's
00:21:22.120taking the fight to them. We've always been playing defensive. We wait until they do something
00:21:26.300to us and then we complain by then it's already done and and we're we're looking in hindsight
00:21:30.600and i got a feeling that i guess some of the establishment people within the party and even
00:21:34.780premier kenny himself still doesn't seem to understand that it was all of the the big talk
00:21:39.880and small action when it came to ottawa over the last few years that are a lot of what led to his
00:21:44.360losing his leadership in the first place like the members want to see something substantial and
00:21:49.440they're not going to put up with more letters to ottawa no the time for that has passed i mean
00:21:54.340we've been doing that same thing for decades, actually, not just years, but decades under an
00:22:00.140NDP government, under PC governments, UCP. It's all the same. It's all the same. It results. The
00:22:07.040result is the same. And that is that the feds don't take us seriously. They think that we're
00:22:11.940just going to, that we're, that we're pushovers and Albertans are reasonable people. And we want
00:22:16.760to be contributing members of, of this country in confederation. We want to be positive in that.
00:22:23.300And I understand that. I understand that. I really do. And I think that we can be a positive influence and unity in this country. But I don't think you can really have a functional relationship, whether that's a personal relationship, whether that's a relationship in business, or whether it's a political relationship, where there's not healthy respect.
00:22:43.560and we have been completely disrespected by Ottawa for decades because we won't stand up for
00:22:49.880ourselves. Quebec gets respect because they stand up for themselves. We don't. And if we start doing0.96
00:22:56.180that, we're going to get results. It's not going to happen all at once. I'm not going to use the
00:22:59.880Sovereignty Act on every single federal piece of legislation you don't like. But if we draw a line
00:23:04.660in the sand on some of these very egregious examples of federal intrusion into provincial
00:23:08.360jurisdiction. Over the next year or two, it'll just become evident to Ottawa that they better
00:23:14.860stay in their own lane because if they don't, they're going to have a big fight on their hands.
00:23:18.980Yeah, well, and some people have described it as something that would bring about
00:23:21.860secessionism or break things up. And I mean, speaking for myself, as a guy who's been
00:23:26.040pretty involved in pushing for full independence for a long time, things like this, if the Sovereignty
00:23:31.820Act works, it would actually reduce secessionism. It would say, look, we can fix things without
00:23:37.220having to separate from the country, we can stand up for ourselves and address these issues. I mean,
00:23:42.760it's sort of disingenuous to claim that this is a secessionist sort of move.
00:23:47.420No, it's absurd. It's just the opposite of that. We do have to use the language sovereignty
00:23:54.020because that's what really we're talking about here. We're talking about the provinces have
00:23:57.820sovereign authority over certain areas in the constitution and those sovereign areas of
00:24:03.800jurisdiction need to be respected for this country to work and i actually think and i know you know
00:24:09.660you know i think daniel's spoken extensively about this that that the actual the way to unify this
00:24:15.540country is for not just alberta to be asserting their sovereign their sovereign authorities not
00:24:22.000just quebec to assert their sovereign authorities which is what they do and we're just essentially
00:24:25.820following their lead on it it's for every province in this country to say look the federal government
00:24:31.460needs to get out of these areas. They're not doing a good job. They're violating our
00:24:35.840constitutional jurisdictions, and they're trying to impose one-size-fits-all approaches on every
00:24:41.180province across the country. And it's been an abject failure from healthcare to daycare to
00:24:46.020everything that they get their tentacles into, frankly, that's provincial in nature. That's a
00:24:50.360provincial jurisdiction under the constitution. So this idea that Pierre Polyev has been talking
00:24:55.460about, and I would say Maxine Bernier has been talking about, this idea of decentralization
00:25:02.300of government, of having the federal role decreased, having the tax pool of the federal
00:25:09.800government decreased, and then a corresponding increase by the provinces to make sure that
00:25:14.640they're handling their own money and their own systems in the way they see fit.
00:25:18.520That is, in my view, and I know in Daniel's view, is the way to actually unify this country,
00:25:23.880because the way we're doing it right now, you know, we're on a path to, we're on a path to
00:25:30.280breakup, I think, in this country if we don't start respecting the rights of our provinces
00:25:36.120under the constitution. Yeah, so going further, and as it kind of shows on the website kind of
00:25:41.520in the past too, I mean, it's one thing to say that you have an act saying you won't enforce
00:25:44.920constitutional things, but some things have to be changed in order to refuse that enforcement,
00:25:50.020such as an Alberta Provincial Police Force, which wouldn't take part in, say, gun seizures,
00:25:54.660or I see, you know, the Independent Banking Act, which could save people's accounts from being
00:25:58.820seized by a government, as we've seen, and the judicial independence. But those are all separate
00:26:02.980acts that would be almost kind of little separate battles on their own as well.
00:26:06.160That's right. And to be clear, like some of the things proposed by the Free Alberta Strategy,
00:26:11.820certainly some of those ideas have been adopted by several candidates on the campaign,
00:26:16.800uh leadership candidates particularly danielle obviously uh which is why i chose to to support
00:26:22.560her uh but several things have not and and that's the thing i mean the free alberta initiative is a
00:26:27.860think tank and we came up with some ideas that we think that would work but to your point cory yes
00:26:33.520there are other pieces and and some of the pieces that danielle's talked about are and and other
00:26:38.880candidates as well are the the need for a provincial police force uh particular for rural
00:26:44.340enforcement. They wouldn't affect the Calgary City Police or the Edmonton City Police or any
00:26:48.260of the city police. Those are provincially overseen anyway. But the RCMP is not. And we
00:26:54.440have our own priorities here in Alberta, in rural Alberta in particular. We need our own
00:26:58.480provincial police force. She's talked about the need to collect our own taxes provincially. We've
00:27:03.460got to put that infrastructure in place. That's important to asserting our sovereignty. And then,
00:27:09.060of course, a pension plan. I mean, that just makes good financial sense. We're sending
00:27:12.800billions and billions of dollars more into that plan that we're getting back for our seniors so
00:27:17.560not only is that asserting sovereignty that just makes a ton of sense on a dollar and cents basis
00:27:21.680so those three things in particular have been um kind of adopted by by several of the leadership
00:27:27.200candidates particularly uh danielle and uh and then that combined with the sovereignty act in my
00:27:34.360view is why so many albertans are looking at that and saying you know what that's a strategy that
00:27:38.900could work. And I think that's why she's having success. Well, yeah. And I mean, if this could
00:27:43.580inspire other provinces as well, I mean, this people don't seem to realize that, you know,
00:27:49.300decentralizing power in an ironic way can bring us closer together because then we aren't at each
00:27:54.200other's throats with other things. I love you using Switzerland as an example. You got four
00:27:58.900official languages, you got 26 cantons, you know, very decentralized government, a great deal of
00:28:04.880change you can travel 50 kilometers and you're into a totally different governing zone and you
00:28:09.640don't hear about independence movements in Switzerland they're all happy in one large
00:28:14.160diverse group and the way to do that is to get the central federal government out of the hair0.89
00:28:18.540the smaller groups isn't it isn't it ironic too that uh you're absolutely right and it's ironic
00:28:24.300because um liberals and the woke woke I would say the woke left establishment they all talk
00:28:31.180about diversity that's their favorite word diversity diversity diversity and that's all
00:28:34.980fine and good they're talking you know we we're a diverse country multicultural that's great and
00:28:39.980then they kind of hypocritically turn around and say but when it comes to control of the country
00:28:43.880we can't have diversity we can't possibly let quebec alberta bc and saskatchewan run their
00:28:49.880child care systems differently or their health care systems differently we need a canada health
00:28:54.360act or we need a you know a new federal daycare program that that that puts conditions on how we1.00
00:29:00.840we run our uh our system here it's just one thing after the other education grants social grants
00:29:06.520everything they have to get their tentacles into everything so they're actually very much
00:29:10.680against diversity uh when it comes to how people run their lives and that's when you're talking
00:29:16.840about diversity that's just as important i mean we we need to respect alberta is not prince edward
00:29:22.360island quebec is not bc like we're very different peoples different cultures and that what that's
00:29:27.960that's what makes us a great nation. And I think if you really look at, you know, the one, you know,
00:29:33.080the 25 to 30, 35% of people that in Alberta and also in other provinces that want to have their
00:29:41.140own independent nation, so to speak, I would say that they're the thing that drives them to that
00:29:47.740the most is how fed up they are with how Ottawa deals with their particular province. Isn't that
00:29:54.660interesting because it's not that they have anything against their fellow Canadians. It's
00:29:58.840not that they don't think BC is not beautiful, the maritime is not beautiful, and the people there
00:30:03.040are great when you sit down and have a beer with them. It's none of that. It's always Ottawa.
00:30:07.280Ottawa is the number one driver of political instability between the provinces and the most,
00:30:15.320I would say, the biggest driver of disunity in our country. And so I think that Alberta can lead
00:30:21.100the way with Quebec, frankly, in making sure that we understand that we are different.
00:30:26.000Let's embrace those differences and let's let the provinces govern themselves as much as possible.
00:30:30.660Yeah. Well, and most of what's being asked are things that other provinces are already doing.
00:30:34.460I mean, it just frustrates me when Alberta tries to assert these sorts of things, we get called
00:30:39.760extreme. When Quebec does it, then they get indulged. I mean, come on guys, let's move on
00:30:45.220from this double standard. Yeah, that's what it is. It's a double standard and it's hypocritical
00:30:50.020in the extreme. And I am always amazed, especially by the individuals that choose to fearmonger on
00:30:57.920this and choose to say, oh, this is a pathway to separation. No, I'm sorry. Asserting your
00:31:03.680constitutional rights as a province, that's just called leadership and standing up for your people.
00:31:12.180It's putting Albertans first, as Daniel is always saying. To try to equate that with trying to break
00:31:18.240up the country and that we're you know that these proposals are are looney tunes it just what it
00:31:23.200shows is is that there's a lot of people in the media and on the left that make knee-jerk decisions
00:31:27.220to things um probably because when they were sipping their latte with their buddy down at
00:31:31.600the coffee shop they uh you know they were looking at their twitter feed they decided that uh that
00:31:37.100this was a bad idea without even taking a substantial look at it and i think that albertans
00:31:41.720generally entrepreneurial people business friendly people they're taking a look at this and they've
00:31:46.520taken a look at it over the last three months and more are going to take a look over the next three
00:31:50.420months. And I think they're going to quite soon come to the realization that this is actually a
00:31:54.960really good step in redefining our relationship into a healthy one with Ottawa. Great. And now
00:32:01.680since you are formally now with Daniel Smith's campaign, I want to turn a little bit before I
00:32:07.080let you go. One of the commenters question, because this is where the campaigns kind of
00:32:10.180change. And I'm really interested in that actually is Kara Byrne-Clark said, you know,
00:32:13.560what about dismantling AHS? And I'm not sure if that's what the campaign point was, but was
00:32:17.460Daniel's taking on at least AHS, which is a huge area. And again, you know, it's really going to
00:32:23.000stir the hornet's nest, but it really needs to be done. Where's the campaign coming from on that?
00:32:28.960Well, AHS, I think your viewers likely talking about the release that was sent out yesterday
00:32:35.540on AHS reform and what Daniel's policy on that is just, well, let's back up. AHS completely failed
00:32:43.160us during the COVID situation and management that occurred. We needed more ICU capacity.
00:32:52.360They gave us less. They gave us a bunch of, you know, while they were bonusing their executives,
00:32:58.620we were having trouble recruiting people to help on the frontline and actually losing people
00:33:02.700because of their insane policy of firing healthcare workers that didn't agree with
00:33:08.360them on getting a vaccine and then taking those individuals and firing them during a health care
00:33:14.460during a pandemic and during a situation where we needed to make sure that we had additional health
00:33:22.340support and health workers there it was an absolute it was just it was crazy that's the
00:33:28.040way to say it their management was completely dysfunctional so the first thing that needs to
00:33:32.700happen is um that daniel has proposed is look we need a new hsco the other one's been let go
00:33:38.240Let's make sure we bring someone in with executive experience who's a health care reformer, who is going to get to the bottom of some of the problems in EMS response times and obviously on the acute care shortage and these types of issues that we've been having.
00:33:55.380The board needs to be replaced with an interim commissioner that works with the CEO.
00:34:01.140That interim commissioner would report directly to the Minister of Health and the Premier.
00:34:05.340And we want a 30 day action plan to give us immediate steps that we can take to to staff up and beef up our ICU and hospital bed capacity.
00:34:17.000So we don't have people on the ground sleeping and being treated on hospital floors as we flow into acute respiratory season here in the fall.
00:34:25.860And then a 90 day plan on how we're going to permanently decentralize health care to the local level, get local professionals and local decision makers involved in the process at the local level, get rid of this ridiculous level of middle management that is just afraid to make good decisions and is butt covering and communications and PR consultants.
00:34:47.080And like, that's just garbage. Let's return health care to the local level. Let's do it in a, you know, in a thoughtful, business-like fashion. So, you know, just rip apart something overnight. But we do need, it does need substantial reform. And there are some things that do make sense for the province to handle as a province. But most health care delivery, that should be at the very local level and not by some big bureaucracy, because it has failed. It has utterly failed. It needs to be changed.
00:35:17.080and reformed. Well, I'm glad to see the discussion opened up. And well, the campaign is getting into
00:35:22.020its final legs, probably what about half of the members have cast their ballot by now who are
00:35:25.760eligible, not to do too many undecideds left out there. But still, I mean, you work right to the
00:35:31.080very end. So thank you very much for coming on to talk and break that down a little more for us
00:35:36.580today. Because, you know, there's just so much different discussion and interpretation on a
00:35:39.800policy that hasn't even actually been drafted into legislation yet. So yeah, it'll be interesting to
00:35:46.260see how that develops. Yes. Thank you, Corey. And I've noted that we've heard of all kinds of
00:35:53.060great ideas. A campaign should be about ideas. I've never heard of anyone ever requesting that
00:35:59.120Justin Trudeau or Pierre Polyev or any of the other candidates running in this race draft
00:36:05.440their legislation in advance. Of course, that's silly. We'll make sure Daniel's said time and
00:36:11.600again, it'll be constitutional, it'll be thoughtful, and it'll be used as a tool
00:36:16.300strategically to take on Ottawa when they, when they egregiously violate our constitutional
00:36:20.520position or constitutional rights. And I'm looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing how that
00:36:25.040rolls out. Right on. Okay. Well, we'll talk again soon. I'm sure I'll let you get back to work.
00:36:30.580You guys got a lot to do before the end of this. Thanks, Corey. Take care. Okay. Thank you.
00:36:36.360That was Rob Anderson. And yes, with the free Alberta strategy. And as he said on here as well,
00:36:40.960he's the co-chair on the Daniel Smith campaign. And again, just whether people agree with or
00:36:46.240disagree with Daniel or with the policies or whatnot, we need some clarity. We need that
00:36:50.440coming from there because people are reading in a whole heck of a lot of what it might mean
00:36:54.880and what it might be. Cheryl Donsing, Pastor Art Pawlowski won the Independence Party of Alberta
00:37:02.640Leadership Race. Is that the party that Corey started? That's sort of the incarnation. The
00:37:08.000The party vanished for a while and was brought back by Dave as the Alberta Independence Party,
00:37:15.760and then they changed it to the Independence Party of Alberta.
00:37:17.680But I am very, very far removed from it now.
00:37:20.020I was 29 back when I started that party back in 1999.
00:37:35.920I watched a video of it from their thing.
00:37:38.680It's to each their own, and it's very religiously based.
00:37:42.220I mean, before they announced their leadership, though, the whole room, you know, bowed their head in prayer and everything, which, again, they have every right to, and that's fine.
00:37:49.120But if you're looking at a theocratic basis, I personally, for myself, I have no interest in it.
00:37:54.600But we'll see where Mr. Pawlowski goes with that.
00:37:57.220He's certainly an outspoken person and a colorful personality.
00:38:01.600uh so it'll keep things uh lively uh on the provincial front anyways uh so i can speak to
00:38:08.320one of our sponsors quickly before i get on to ranting about some other stuff here and that is
00:38:12.400the canadian shooting sports association these guys have been sponsoring the western standard
00:38:16.200for quite some time they're a great group guys i mean we were talking about earlier you know i was
00:38:20.940out i never even had to fire a shot but i i had a bear problem in my backyard i took my shotgun out
00:38:26.380just to be on the safe side. And, uh, you know, I have that right to do that. Well, there's a
00:38:31.880government that says I shouldn't have that right. There's a government that wants to take my
00:38:34.240firearms away. I guess they'd want me to go out there with, uh, you know, a cap gun, if that's
00:38:39.060allowed or something like that. Look, we need to stand up for ourselves on so many fronts and it,
00:38:43.240with firearms owners, whether you collect, whether you're a hunter, whether you're a
00:38:46.380sporting shooter, you've got to join this association guys. Cause that's how you get
00:38:49.880together. That's how you stand up for yourself. That's how you stop them from taking your property.
00:38:55.020So get out there, check them out, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association,
00:44:29.720I mean, there's where I've differed from a lot of our viewers before in that I don't believe in giving the state capital punishment or the ability for it.
00:44:38.440And the reason for it is just like with that stabby monster out in Saskatchewan who was guilty of 69 crimes and they let him out again and he killed 10 or 11 more people before they caught him.
00:44:50.520I didn't shed a tear when I heard he was dead.
00:44:54.060Good. The world is a better place for it.
00:45:01.760Look, look how well the government's already served us, guys.
00:45:04.920Look what they did with, I mean, did you think they would come out and seize our bank accounts?
00:45:08.480Did you think they would lock us in our houses?
00:45:10.280Did you think they would shut down our businesses?
00:45:13.560Well, I don't want to give that group of people more power.
00:45:16.500And you can't give them a power more powerful than the ability to execute citizens.
00:45:23.560So I don't ever want the government to have that power again.
00:45:25.420Hey, life sentences, absolutely. I want to see some of those sick buggers locked up, weld the door shut, and die of old age in prison. I just don't want to see the government having the ability to kill people. And that paradox is saying, yeah, this guy's parole release was managed by government. Yeah, I know. They screwed that up. The parole still has to be fixed.
00:51:14.760but they fell between the cracks into meth, heroin, and fentanyl, and they aren't in their
00:51:19.040right minds, and they are not harmless. They are dangerous to themselves and others, and we need to
00:51:24.800start taking some hard reality checks when it comes to people like that. And as I said, I'm
00:51:29.560sympathetic. I mean, I'm open about things. I always talk about my personal things. I'm not
00:51:33.020above those things. I'm an alcoholic. It took many, many, many meetings in church basements
00:51:37.880before I finally stopped drinking, you know, and I haven't had a drink in years now.
00:51:41.280But I needed help. I didn't do it alone. I did it with the support of a lot of other alcoholics. And I still, thankfully, didn't fall as far or as low as a lot of people did when they're addicted to something. But our cities, they live in this state of denial. Let's keep sugarcoating it. Let's keep calling them vulnerable people and unhoused people. Guys, they're addicts. And until you admit what they are, we're not going to get to the solution of it.
00:52:08.460Speaking of denial, you know, so we got the second annual Aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation Day coming at the end of the month.
00:52:18.720When are they going to dig at Kamloops?
00:52:21.260You know, I listened to somebody on a radio interview the other day, still going on,
00:52:25.280215 children are buried, they were murdered in Kamloops.