Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford and Senior Alberta Columnist Corey Morgan join host Derek Fildebrandt and Senior Editor-in-Chief Editor-In-Chief Corey Morgan to talk about Canada's new police force, the Alberta Police Service, the Digital Services Tax, and much, much more.
00:01:23.020okay well uh two great canadians uh bonnie henry and theresa tam are being honored with canada's
00:01:35.340highest honor entrance into the order of canada we'll be talking about them and uh i i think we're
00:01:42.060standing by uh don don cherry is being put in too right finally yeah sure yes yeah uh okay today so
00:01:49.740So, yeah, the kind of Laurentian carême de la creme that is the governing body of the Order of Canada, deciding to put Bonnie Henry and Teresa Tam to join them in this highest of high honors.
00:02:04.200Alberta announced just today it is creating its own police force.
00:02:09.940I think it's called the Alberta Sheriff's Police Service.
00:02:15.560Danielle Smith says this is not to replace the RCMP.
00:02:19.520Critics of the sovereignty agenda say it is to replace the RCMP.
00:02:26.060And people like myself who love the sovereignty agenda say, I hope it's to replace the RCMP.
00:02:34.480The old Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta might be back.
00:02:39.400two exiled uh mlas from the ucp have uh registered the name for the progressive conservative party
00:02:47.400with uh elections alberta uh there might we'll get into if they actually technically will succeed
00:02:53.900in that or not but they might um they have said that uh the ucp is so corrupt and so big spending
00:03:01.040that the answer to it is to bring back the party with the highest spending and the most corruption
00:03:45.840I was just hoping that Mr. Trump's next demand will have something to do with supply and management.
00:03:53.660So look, the digital services tax, I mean, it's actually a Trudeau-era legislation that was due to come into effect yesterday, June the 30th.
00:04:04.240it was retroactive to 2022 but what it was it was to apply to companies that operate online
00:04:10.480marketing and and online advertising services social media platforms
00:04:16.400and streaming like netflix well this is how it would have gone supposing that you had actually
00:04:24.080booked into a book booked into airbnb and then you had um when you got there you decide to sit
00:04:32.640down and relax with with something from netflix and by the way you had amazon drop off something
00:04:39.760or a or a fast food drop off something you'd have been paying three percent on all of that
00:04:45.280yeah that's a digital services tax you order online you you pay the tax so the thing was
00:04:52.320that everybody's oh well you know just fold it like a cheap wheat he certainly did fold he should
00:04:57.600have but i mean the thing was it's not like this would have been taxing american companies no it's
00:05:11.060You showed us that we're now paying a dollar for something that used to cost 75 cents.
00:05:16.500So this was never a good thing for Canadians, even if you sort of like the idea that people shouldn't be able to just come in and do business here without paying tax.
00:05:29.420We would have been the ones paying the tax.
00:05:31.460so that's what they did and when mr trump was notified about it told me i don't know maybe
00:05:38.800howard levitt walked in and said you know what they're doing up there in canada digital service
00:05:43.320tax and by the way sir it's retroactive to 2022 so some of your biggest fans are going to have to
00:05:49.480come up with a couple of billion dollars to give mr carney and he said no deals off we're not talking
00:05:55.440to those guys until they get rid of it and so it's gone so i think really the takeaway from this one
00:06:01.040Derek, is if you want something, never mind
00:11:56.220tell me what it is that keeps it alive,
00:11:58.060because there's something like 10 000 dairy farmers before i go any further i eat cheese i
00:12:02.940like butter and i drink milk and it's a you know i got nothing but good things to say about well-run
00:12:08.700professional farmers doing a good job but the thing is you have to buy into it you have to buy
00:12:15.500the license it's like the way the taxis work you have to buy your license before you get in and
00:12:20.460then you're told how much you can produce how much you can sell and what price you're going to get
00:12:26.220for it so as long as they don't have expensive tastes they are extremely secure in what they do
00:12:33.660good for them it's worked for a long time there's no animus here but there are 10 000 people
00:12:41.260producing milk and butter in canada and there are 40 million people who need it and our need to pay
00:12:49.100perhaps as much as five times the price if you go on to the government of
00:12:55.940Canada website and look up the trade page you will find that they admit that
00:13:02.300they pay let they charge as much as two hundred and thirty percent tariffs on
00:13:08.840American dairy products that I guess what it takes to keep the Canadian
00:13:14.600farmers competitive and secure. And I just say, you know, 230% is clearly too much. I don't know
00:13:22.280whether 23% wouldn't be a bit much, but 230%, that $10 a pound, $9 a pound butter shouldn't be
00:13:31.460costing $9 a pound. It should be costing a lot less. And I just filed a column on that, actually.
00:13:36.360I mean, I do not understand, therefore, I understand that the dairy lobby has got an incredibly well-organized system for keeping MPs on side.
00:14:40.160That's the most expensive part of a pizza.
00:14:42.120And we actually had a rebate program that was given to restaurants.
00:14:47.720You had to register for it and they would knock off about 10% of the price for commercial mozzarella for my restaurant because they had a cheese smuggling problem happening in Montreal.
00:18:23.280He kind of went to war with Danielle Smith and the UCP over some of the questions around some health care contracts and the restructuring there.
00:27:18.480I mean, the political makeup in Alberta then was actually a strong liberal opposition, a strong progressive conservative, and the NDP would have two to four seats on and off throughout.
00:27:30.860But still, there was never quite a threat to the balance.
00:27:33.300In fact, the liberals and NDP tended to scrap for their votes rather than the PCs, so the conservatives could kind of comfortably stay in power and have that opposition.
00:27:42.640If that sort of balance could be reachieved, but the risk is where they're going to draw their, where are they going to draw their support from? If they come from the left, they pull their support from Ninchy because some people aren't necessarily comfortable with him or the NDP, then actually in some ways it could work okay.
00:28:00.340They could get a couple seats, but the UCP would still dominate the legislature.0.91
00:28:04.300If they draw from the UCP, though, we know that their win was pretty darn narrow, and that could turn into something that brings the NDP in.
00:28:12.780I think there's a possibility of a balance, but it just depends on where they draw their support.
00:28:17.220So, Angel, new and small parties are always, they almost always fail.
00:36:30.300I don't know if they're trying to stir people up or if they really think these guys were heroes for just doing what was kind of in their mandate as bureaucrats.
00:38:26.140Anybody else who wants a guide on how to get things done,
00:38:30.840how public health should be administered,
00:38:32.440what is the relationship between the state and the citizen?
00:38:35.840Is it one in which free citizens elect a government or is one where a government has authority over the citizens?
00:38:43.740That's what this, there's a deeper significance to this award.
00:38:48.280There's echoes here, I think, of when Henry Morgenthaler was given the order.
00:38:54.780Whatever you think of him, whatever you think of the abortion issue, it was a decision for the Canadian establishment to put a stamp of approval on him and what he did.
00:39:05.840uh and and try to end debate retroactively and i think it's somewhat succeeded i i i see this
00:39:13.640as in some form the canadian political laurentian establishment uh fighting against
00:39:20.780you know those of us who do not accept uh you know the official narrative here and say you know
00:39:28.380they want to say overall yeah things were pretty good and we're going to honor those who were the
00:39:33.520public faces of this. Yeah, I'm not sure
00:39:35.440I would tie that to the Laurentian elite
00:40:01.120in the federal government. It is killing other senior
00:40:03.140bureaucrats yeah they are saying this is the way we want it done thank you very much you two here's
00:40:08.660your here's your little snowflakes but they toss it out to celebrities left right and center as
00:40:13.460well obscure other players who get to that yeah there we go and they exclude others that really
00:40:20.740says a lot about uh what they do you know like if i don't know i maybe i'll be wrong but like
00:40:26.420Like, you know, if I asked Grok to make a video for me of the most Canadian guy in the world, it conceivably could spit out Don Cherry, and it doesn't even need to invent the guy.
00:40:37.280You know, he's just an old-school hockey hoser, and, you know, he's never been a—not particularly political.
00:40:45.800He's just been considered political because he has, you know, what are now considered to be retrograde old Canada views.
00:40:53.100But it's a significant impact on our culture.