Join us this week as we discuss the carbon tax protests across the country, including one that shut down traffic on the Trans-Canada highway between Calgary and Vancouver, and the response by the Canadian Mounties to it.
00:06:32.960Well, I was impressed that, you know, there were these similar protests even in Quebec, you know, which has its own carbon price scheme and, you know, ostensibly supports the carbon tax.
00:06:47.080Even in British Columbia, some gas stations lowered prices to 2008 levels, which was about a buck a liter, because that was the year that they introduced their own carbon tax.
00:06:57.780The Crow's Nest Pass protests drew people from Sparwood and some of those communities
00:07:50.380And I would have been just as impressed
00:07:51.840if I've just seen 500 people on the side of the road waving signs and flags without backing up
00:07:56.720the traffic. I always said, wow, that's a lot of people getting off their butt on a long weekend
00:08:00.240when they could be doing other things to express themselves. I just don't feel they needed to piss
00:08:04.760everybody off, to be blunt about it. Did you honk? No, because I was just trying to pull through as
00:08:12.500things were. But I guess, you know, people have to express themselves. And as things go, I mean,
00:08:18.760it's finished now and there were certainly no big clashes with police or anything like that so
00:08:22.840it was good as far as that went. The police probably don't like paying carbon tax either.
00:08:27.900No and I don't think they, despite what some people might think, they don't like wading in
00:08:31.600on protesters and swinging the batons and breaking them up if they can avoid it as well.
00:08:35.760Well there's a certain point we've got, another point that we've got to get across is the
00:08:39.300fundamental deceit of saying look you're getting more back than the tax that you are paying.
00:08:48.760first of all it is not true notwithstanding the earnest protestations of the prime minister
00:08:56.280truth of the matter is that that is a taxable those checks are taxable are they not i'm not
00:09:03.080sure i believe they are i just felt my taxes i got 900 bucks and then part of it too is you pay gst
00:09:10.760on the carbon tax when you like yeah the whole thing is that the general raising of prices
00:09:16.920through inflation caused by the truckers the farmers the food producers and everybody else
00:09:21.960passing on the the carbon tax they pay uh it there is no way that those checks that the government
00:09:29.640sends you are anywhere close to what you are paying out well the other issue is uh how effective
00:09:38.040it actually is um there was a report from i believe it was the clean clean clean energy
00:09:45.000something CES centers you know they're they're very pro carbon tax but by their
00:09:50.880estimates a consumer carbon tax only accounts for about 3% of the emissions
00:09:55.620reduction you know in in terms of the pain that it's that's the other end of
00:10:01.680it it's not changing the climate it's not moving the needle no no no no well
00:10:06.480let's go to something else that isn't moving the needle and that's the Chinese1.00
00:10:11.340the inquiry finally sort of, kind of into the Chinese election interference or foreign election
00:10:18.400interference. We're starting to get some questions at least. Let's come back into the news scroll.
00:10:23.580What's going on over there, Sean? You know, I haven't really followed this one that closely,
00:10:29.340although I am familiar with the Chinese community. I suppose what struck me as odd was
00:10:35.980Our columnist Linda Splodian, you know, kind of said it best is that, you know, they haven't managed to really make any inroads in this investigation, even though they've been doing it now for, what, two years?
00:10:47.320But at the same time, they were investigating election signs from, you know, our friends over at Rebel Media there.
00:10:54.280You know, somehow it seemed to take a higher priority when you're tarnishing the image of the prime minister as opposed to actual real bonafide election interference.
00:11:03.780Yeah, and Linda always puts it excellently and, you know, the double standard.0.51
00:11:09.120I mean, this apparently just doesn't seem to be important to the government.
00:21:26.520So getting on to that federal government, they're grossly unpopular.
00:21:30.740Lots of people eager to get their chance to express that at the ballot box.
00:21:34.560But that might not be as soon as we even think.
00:21:38.260I mean, a lot of people think there's that fixed date coming up a year and a half from now in fall.
00:21:43.380But constitutionally, that's not necessarily all that fixed.
00:21:45.980Actually, that's just policy. That's not constitutional.
00:21:49.000So we bring somebody in who's suffered for many years in Parliament to learn those ins and outs and all that constitutional stuff and policy stuff.
00:21:56.220We've got Jay Hill in here and he'll kind of explain that our hopes for getting rid of this government in a year and a half might be dashed.
00:22:28.040Yeah, we've got this, I'll call it a system of law in this country where we've become used to having a federal election roughly every four years.
00:22:42.240And the date is set after the most recent election so that primarily the governing party and the prime minister can't play with the date to suit their own needs, which is what would happen before.
00:22:55.540We have these so-called fixed election dates.
00:22:59.140However, because they don't align with the Constitution, specifically Section 50, where a government can wait five years for an election, it's really still up to the prime minister.
00:23:19.100And we've had a couple of cases in the last number of years where prime ministers have called an election before the fixed date.
00:23:27.320We just had in the House of Commons, Corey, the government bring in a new bill whereby they'll delay the next election, one week in October of 2025, so that a whole raft of MPs qualify for the pension plan, which they wouldn't have otherwise qualified for.
00:23:50.200So there's still ambiguity, I guess I'll call it, about when the election will be.
00:23:56.020So we could have a whole discussion about that.
00:23:57.920But as far as I know, the prime minister could still at some point over the next year and a half further delay it up to a year.
00:24:06.180And the only time I'm aware that that's happened in my lifetime was the first two elections I was involved in.
00:24:12.340And ironically, it was also when a governing party, in that case, the Progressive Conservatives, were incredibly unpopular, and they delayed the election for up to five years, or almost five years.
00:24:27.000I think they were about a month short.
00:24:29.100And Kim Campbell suffered the worst defeat in electoral history.
00:24:33.760So I don't think delaying it a year will save Mr. Trudeau or his government,
00:24:39.300but it'll certainly do a tremendous additional year of damage to our country.
00:26:29.020My anxiety would be that in that year, knowing that they were going down in flames at the end of it,
00:26:34.440they would do they would live every dream they ever had uh and and cause harm to this country
00:26:44.040both in terms of its sense of self-worth but also obviously in the economy or um i don't know
00:26:52.680whether we'd ever be able to haul ourselves out from it and i bet that this is the this is something
00:26:57.880in the back of his mind we'll get further from that and i was chatting with jay a bit before
00:27:02.120this show. And another real scary scenario, now we're kind of getting out there, but you never
00:27:06.080know, especially in this day and age. Well, let's say they stretch it the extra year. People go
00:27:10.440pretty bananas. We have a lot of protests and disorder and things happen. Well, that could lead
00:27:15.780to, there's one more way to extend it even beyond five years. And that was mentioned in World War
00:27:20.740II. They changed it from the name of the War Measures Act, call it the Emergencies Act, which
00:27:25.580we've recently saw it imposed for protests, Jay, conceivably the Emergencies Act could extend it
00:27:32.200even further, couldn't it? Oh, absolutely. And we've seen that happen, for example, in Venezuela.
00:27:39.540And this gives me a chance to plug my most recent column, which Western Standard has graciously ran
00:27:47.820in your publication, because I talk about this and it's not as far-fetched as people would think.
00:27:54.660I mean, we look at what this government has done during its, you know, I would call it a false mandate.
00:28:07.220You know, nobody expected that the NDP would effectively give Trudeau a majority government, and yet that's what's happened.
00:28:14.760Nigel mentioned whether Singh would allow this government to go on an additional year after the four years.
00:28:22.580Well, everything we've seen thus far would indicate he will.
00:28:27.680And you were also talking earlier, gentlemen, about the ongoing carbon tax protests.
00:28:36.880And I would argue that if they want to be effective with these protests, where they should be is in the NDP members of parliament's ridings.
00:28:47.280And I've said this for quite some time. Put pressure on those MPs to revolt against Singh. That's the only way this government is going to fall. And, you know, so if you want effective protests, get into those ridings, get into those MPs' faces and ask them why they don't stand up and force their NDP colleagues to vote non-confidence in this government. And then it will end.
00:29:14.760And I think that would be an effective protest and could be done, especially because I have personal experience being a so-called dissident and rebelling against a leader.
00:29:27.060So I know it can be done. It's not a comfortable position to be in, but the NDP could do that if they so chose.
00:29:35.480You know, I just wanted to make a comment because Jay mentioned a magic word there, and that was mandate.
00:29:42.980So my 16-year-old daughter is doing model parliament up in Edmonton this weekend.
00:29:47.420And we were talking in the car the other day.
00:29:49.360And she said, you know, Dad, what's a mandate?
00:29:52.300You know, and so, you know, I kind of have to try to.
00:29:57.540And I said, well, you know, like we're in this position now where this government is so unpopular, like, you know, that it really doesn't have a mandate anymore to do anything.
00:30:08.320And that what it reasonably should do is call an election.
00:30:12.520like now you know just just clear the decks and get it out of the way so i just was kind of
00:30:18.440impressed that jay kind of brought up that word mandate you know and the fact is that this
00:30:23.640government has none and uh i would argue that that extends over to the ndp as well well and those
00:30:29.160cracks and loyalty and as jay mentioned i mean we remember the the the difficulties under stockwell
00:30:33.720day conservatives are always quick to uh uh speak up when when they've had it with their leadership
00:30:38.920and do what they feel it takes to, for better or worse, change the situation.
00:30:44.360But the loyalty among the Liberal caucus has just been astounding, as well as with the NDP.
00:30:50.820I mean, we know that some of those NDP members of Parliament find it galling that they're in bed with the Liberals on this.
00:30:56.840They're socialists. They want to move farther left.
00:31:03.740I understand you're saying, let's put some pressure on them or have those protesters put the pressure on those.
00:31:08.920NDP members that could be the weak link that would finally you know take this coalition apart but do
00:31:14.040you think they'll ever actually budge? Well I think that one of the deciding factors for them to take
00:31:20.680action Corey might be if the protesters in their ridings were able to generate enough support from
00:31:30.600their own constituents so that those members of parliament know that whenever the election happens
00:31:36.680they're toast that they're never going to get re-elected they're going to lose their job
00:31:41.960and that despite the fact that they that they now apparently will uh qualify for uh their pension
00:31:50.200they're going to lose their job they're going to become unemployed and for many of those um mps0.98
00:31:55.320it's the best job they've ever had so i think there are there should be ways to put pressure on them
00:32:01.320So that even if they do it behind closed doors and put pressure on their own leader during caucus meetings, we need to see a change in the support, the blanket support that Singh has been giving to Trudeau.
00:32:16.380Because, as you say, they don't, or your other guest said, that this government does not have a mandate, and yet they're forging ahead on multiple fronts to impose laws on Canadians that I would argue the vast majority of Canadians do not support.
00:32:34.680So it's an abominable situation. And it's a real problem if we end up with a government that uses open protest like they did with, I would argue, peaceful protests in Ottawa with the Freedom Convoy to impose martial law, which would even allow them to ostensibly shut down this program that we're participating in right now.
00:33:04.480should they choose. They can do whatever they want. And that's absolutely frightening.
00:33:10.600And so I've been grappling for quite some time with just how far will this prime minister and
00:33:16.500his government, with the support of the NDP, go? You know, how low will they go effectively?
00:33:24.300Perhaps you guys can enlighten me as to what you think, how far he's going to proceed.
00:33:29.940Only time is going to tell at this point, I guess. We'll all morbidly watch and hope for the best
00:33:34.980and then put pressure on how possible. Our system just makes it darn difficult to do much between
00:33:40.020elections. That's kind of part of what my column was about. Before I close off, Jay, yeah, you've
00:33:46.580been providing columns for us here at the Western Standard. I'm going to let you go, though. Anything
00:33:52.740else you'd like to add before we send you back to the nice sunshine you're enjoying there?
00:33:56.260well i just thank you for being on the program and giving my uh column my latest column a plug
00:34:02.980i hope people read it and at least consider it um it certainly will give the prime minister the
00:34:09.280opportunity to uh label me something or other as he does anybody that speaks out against him
00:34:14.640but i i still uh appreciate taking part in in some open debate and discussion about these issues
00:34:23.660because they're increasingly important to all Canadians.
00:34:27.220You know, Jay, I just want to tell you, your column is actually going,
00:34:30.540I'm really saying this for the benefit of the listeners,
00:34:33.280the column runs at 7.30 tomorrow morning.
00:34:36.700And the other thing that I'll send you on your way with
00:34:40.560is that if Mr. Trudeau had not actually considered the possibility
00:34:45.620of going to five years, he read it in the Western Standard first,
00:35:45.300So that was Jay Hill, who served a lot of time as a whip and a number of roles as a member of parliament.
00:35:52.100And yes, it's always good to hear from him because he's been on the front lines of all of that for a long time
00:35:57.420and can lend a lot of experience to these issues that people would rather not talk about quite often, to be honest.
00:36:03.900So getting on to the next one, a nice easy one.
00:36:06.140We're back to medical assistance and dying.
00:36:09.060There's been a development in that ongoing case with that gentleman and his daughter.
00:36:14.800Yeah, he's filed to the Alberta Court of Appeal, which is kind of like the last stop before the
00:36:20.800Supreme Court to maintain the injunction. It's a really sad story. Father basically fighting
00:36:30.540for his daughter's life. We were talking about this. She's living in the basement. How do you
00:36:37.920have this conversation at the dinner table? Dad, I want to die. She's 27 years old. She's got0.92
00:36:42.880autism. She's got ADHD. Those are just the things that we know about because she hasn't filed any
00:36:50.560documentation with the court over what her actual medical condition would be. Like presumably to be
00:36:57.660approved for MAID, you have to have some kind of, I don't know, life ending, life debilitating kind
00:37:06.160condition normally we think it would apply more to old people for alzheimer's or you know terminal
00:37:13.280cancer or something like that but uh so he says she doesn't have the mental capacity to make the0.99
00:37:18.640decision he says any medical condition she has are a result of undiagnosed psychological disorders
00:37:25.680but the judge is basically saying it's not up to the courts to interfere in patient doctor
00:37:33.840confidentiality even though she had to shop around for a third doctor to actually get the approval
00:37:39.000because you only need two the star panel only takes two to you know doctors or nurse practitioners
00:37:44.660to approve so she went to one he approved she went to another he disapproved so they shopped
00:37:50.020around for the tiebreaker doctor um she was scheduled to die on february 1st and he had
00:37:56.220the injunction the day before on january 31st to like last ditch effort to to kind of stop this and
00:38:03.320His complaint in court, even though we're not allowed to identify them, is that AHS and College of Physicians and Surgeons have a duty of care to at least explain why this is happening.
00:38:19.320You know, instead of just allowing it, AHS says, all we're doing is performing the procedure.
00:39:57.800And, you know, get through it is the would be the message.
00:40:04.080It's a tough, you know, we've objected to when the when the I'm thinking back to the case of Annette Lewis, the woman who wanted an organ transplant and they wouldn't put her on the table to do the job because she wouldn't take the vaccine.
00:40:21.020And eventually she died. And so we were quite upset when the medical profession made that decision.
00:40:26.300well here we've here we're saying well do we want the judge making the decision instead of
00:40:32.600the medical profession and it's it's hard to know who actually should have the last word
00:40:39.440on allowing somebody who is capable of living to choose death yeah absolutely um i mean are we
00:40:48.720going to extend it to people down syndrome you know like what what qualifies and i i'm not you
00:40:55.920I'm a little bit torn on this. I respect the fact that she's 27 years old. There was a
00:41:02.780spokesman from the Autism Society that said people with autism are quite capable of having
00:41:08.920autonomy in these kind of matters. You and I were talking, you only have to be 16 years
00:41:19.220old in this province to have an abortion without parental consent. You have to be 18 to have
00:41:24.920a tattoo you know maybe 27 years old is old enough to be able to make those
00:41:29.780kinds of decisions or not but what struck me though is that if you're going
00:41:34.340to put it up to a panel and they were supposed to follow some kind of
00:41:38.180objective guidelines it seems fairly reasonable to me that they should be
00:41:42.680willing to be able to defend that decision in front of a professional body
00:41:48.020like the College of Physicians and Surgeons even though after I wrote the
00:41:52.040story, even though they had lawyers in the courtroom at that time, one of their spokespeople
00:41:58.080emailed me to kind of correct one of my articles and say, well, we are not directly intervening
00:42:04.280in this case. So they're kind of watching it, but they're not observing it, whereas Alberta
00:42:11.020Health Services is. And this fellow's complaint is actually with Alberta Health Services,
00:42:17.000Because what he's saying is that they're failing to live up to a duty of care because his daughter does not have the mental, he claims, not the mental capacity to be able to make these decisions.
00:42:28.260And he thinks that it's actually AHS that should have to justify performing this procedure.
00:42:35.340And now the lawyers for AHS went up there and said, well, we make these decisions every day based on what the doctor says.
00:42:44.620You know, we're making decisions to pull, you know, whatever, IVs and breathalyzers or, you know, breathing machines and these triage decisions all the time.
00:42:55.860And so the question is, is how does this become any different?
00:42:59.500I'll tell you, that's a reassuring note.
00:43:01.060Next time you're going in for something, isn't it?
00:44:01.980And this is an expansion of an idea that is guaranteed to break somebody's heart.
00:44:08.620Well, even the government is having second thoughts because earlier this year they delayed expanding it for, you know, mental illness as a sole condition, you know, by at least three years while they were reviewing it.
00:44:20.560And this actually came up in the proceedings as well, is that it doesn't even seem like the government is comfortable with where this is going.
00:44:28.520Well, the government is not comfortable about…
00:44:31.840They were the ones that brought it in.