Western Standard - May 21, 2026


Chaos at the Select Special Citizen Initiative Proposal Review Committee


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

171.47246

Word count

10,605

Sentence count

111

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


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 .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 welcome back how's everybody doing today
00:00:28.800 hey um hey i'll tell you honestly i'm in a weird giddy mood feisty mood i'm in a good mood i was
00:00:37.740 gonna wear shorts i was gonna i was gonna come to work calling it come to work i was gonna come to
00:00:42.300 the studio today wearing shorts but then after this i'm heading over to the annual general meeting
00:00:48.460 of a local oil and gas company called paydo so i thought i better better dress up a little bit
00:00:53.920 look like a shareholder um it is it is that time of year right it's shareholder annual general
00:01:00.080 meetings for all industries basically i mean any business in canada that runs on a uh january 1st
00:01:07.680 to december 31st calendar year usually finish you know waits about three months by march they've
00:01:14.960 they've closed out the year finished their books and then they spend time doing their annual
00:01:19.120 reports and then now's the season of annual reports and uh i like to go in person i'm glad
00:01:26.240 because uh there was a long period there where all annual general meetings were online and i hated
00:01:32.000 that now we're back to having them in person and i like going to uh to those meetings especially
00:01:39.120 oil and gas ones um so uh call-in show folks it's all about you right so this works way better if
00:01:48.320 you call in you got the number there down on the bottom uh one eight six six four seven nine west
00:01:54.560 uh john the producer is working on finding us a um switchboard but i think we've got things
00:02:00.800 working pretty good now so when you call uh he he might put you on hold while i'm talking to
00:02:06.640 somebody else but i've got uh we we're getting things figured out uh all right where where to go
00:02:13.120 so um i you know the the i think the thing i got i got about three topics uh high on my list that i
00:02:20.800 want to talk about today of course uh it's always a topic it's always independence and there's
00:02:25.760 definitely been some movement on independence there was a weird event in the legislature
00:02:31.280 yesterday which i definitely want to talk about uh smith had an announcement this morning she did
00:02:36.880 a minor shuffle on her cabinet i'd like to talk about that on uh on on the alberta ottawa relationship
00:02:43.600 i definitely want to talk about the part two of the mou and the meeting last week between uh smith
00:02:50.640 and carney talking about advancing pipelines i found that one a little bit weird we'll get into
00:02:56.080 details but you know he's kind of like saying one thing to us here in alberta and then he
00:02:59.920 rushes over to bc and then when he's in bc he's kind of like uh don't worry about what i said to
00:03:04.720 those guys you know and he he has sort of two stories and um and i want to talk about the
00:03:10.800 snowbirds just from a personal point of view um i i'm i'm always i just don't like what's happening
00:03:17.360 to canada's military and this is another example but it also speaks to the bigger picture of uh
00:03:24.880 of of neglect and and failures of the liberals and then a couple of miscellaneous topics but
00:03:31.280 But so let's talk about what happened in the legislature yesterday.
00:03:37.320 So as part of the Citizens Initiative Act, any group that petitions the government,
00:03:44.960 so there's two in front of the government right now.
00:03:47.040 There was the Lukasik petition and the Mitch Sylvester petition.
00:03:53.980 the procedure is once the once the uh chief electoral officer certifies a petition counts
00:04:01.660 it then he gives it to the government to danielle smith and and to uh and she is obligated under the
00:04:09.180 act to form a small committee to study what the petition act asks right so the petition doesn't
00:04:14.300 necessarily ask for a referendum it can ask for a change in policy or something else and so when
00:04:20.060 thomas lukasic handed in his petition at the end of last year a committee was formed
00:04:27.340 and the committee is called the special the select special citizens initiative proposal review
00:04:34.780 committee so that's the committee it's a six person committee was formed late last year
00:04:40.300 and uh four members of the ucp and two members of the ndp formed this committee and then this
00:04:46.940 committee was supposed to study lukasic's question now they didn't meet for most of the last three
00:04:55.260 months they never met because that we were told there was a specific reason for that which was the
00:05:00.860 government knew that mitch had filed a petition and that there would likely be a second petition
00:05:07.100 so they were kind of thinking let's hold off on this committee and let's wait until we get mitch's
00:05:12.060 the stay free alberta petition and then the committee can study both at the same time
00:05:16.220 well as we all know mitch's petition is uh basically null and void now because of the courts
00:05:23.100 until there's an appeal so that's all happening so so nothing much going on with mitch's petition so
00:05:29.020 bring back to the committee the committee was meeting yesterday to talk about thomas
00:05:33.660 lukasic's petition and in the committee turned into a bit of a gong show because um
00:05:40.460 Um, halfway through the, so the committee was scheduled to go from two o'clock till 4 PM,
00:05:45.980 just a two hour long committee and right around the three o'clock mark outcomes, a press release.
00:05:52.340 And the press release basically said that the committee had agreed to a variation or to had
00:05:59.640 agreed to some sort of, um, uh, independence question for a referendum that it was going
00:06:05.420 make that recommendation to uh danielle smith well the committee was taking a break when that
00:06:12.380 happened and when the committee came back and reconvened after their break the ndp immediately
00:06:18.860 raised not just a point of order but a point of privilege and read this um news release that had
00:06:27.100 come out and within the news release said that the committee had agreed on a motion
00:06:32.780 you know basically had decided on a question and uh the committee hadn't and so and the point of
00:06:40.540 privilege is an important one right this point of privilege is a point like was literally quote
00:06:45.580 say trying to portray the committee as being not the committee the chair of the committee as being
00:06:52.140 in contempt of parliament and the point of privilege tried to pass a motion asking that
00:06:59.580 all the kerfuffle be uh forwarded to the speaker of the house for a a ruling and opinion from the
00:07:07.740 speaker of the house now luckily for the conservatives the point of motion the motion
00:07:16.060 as point as this point of privilege failed because um the two ndp voted for it but three members of
00:07:23.820 the committee uh the end of the ucp voted against and then of course the chair didn't need to vote
00:07:28.700 so it was defeated three to two and and uh and then that allowed the committee to resume but
00:07:34.540 by then the committee was running out of time the committee had decided to run from two to four and
00:07:38.940 so then the next order of business was to try and get the committee extended past four o'clock
00:07:46.060 and at that point the um the clerks reminded everybody that the only way to extend the
00:07:52.700 timeline of the committee is by unanimous vote and as soon as it was brought up as a possible motion
00:07:58.380 the 2ndp said no and so the meeting came adjourned right away without having done
00:08:04.940 anything but the interesting thing about that other than being caught with you know with either
00:08:10.780 prematurely well by by prematurely sending out that memo it kind of shows that the in that the
00:08:17.580 ucp had a plan all along and their plan was to force some sort of motion and get some sort of
00:08:24.380 vote on an on a referendum question there's no doubt about that because they they they issued a
00:08:30.140 memo and they could have done that right if they hadn't issued that memo and if they had just let
00:08:34.220 the committee proceed they could have played done the theatrics and pretended to listen and argued
00:08:40.540 you know whether lukasic wanted a referendum or not they because they brought lukasic yesterday
00:08:45.900 to the committee and by the way i watched all this live like i i i watched this because i'm
00:08:51.180 still one of those guys who likes to watch the odd committee or watch question periods and things
00:08:55.420 like that i get on my treadmill in the morning or in the afternoon and that when while i'm running
00:09:00.620 i got nothing else to do for an hour so i'll just watch some of this stuff and um so then i like
00:09:06.620 yesterday i watched lukasic trying to argue back and forth with nixon that no he never intended his
00:09:13.020 petition to be a referendum question blah blah blah the cons the conservatives if had they if
00:09:18.700 had they played this well would have proposed a motion somewhere near the end of the committee
00:09:24.380 and would have won on a vote three to two and the ndp there's nothing they could have done about it
00:09:29.420 and then they could have validly said here you know presented danielle smith with some sort of
00:09:34.540 question and by by doing what they did yesterday they made a mockery of the whole process they
00:09:43.020 showed their cards i mean i i understand that you know i play both sides of politics and uh
00:09:49.260 and i understand and i i agree with the ndp who are upset about this and with people who are upset
00:09:55.180 with the process i'm even upset about the process myself like even though i know this is going on
00:09:59.900 when you see it so blatantly it's a little bit upsetting and as a as a as a guy who spent hours
00:10:06.060 collecting signatures i mean my preferred course would be that the signatures be counted and the
00:10:11.500 process work and and i'll get a question on the referendum the the the way i you know we intended
00:10:18.300 it plan b would be a debate a proper debate on lucasic's question and maybe get it on the
00:10:25.900 referendum that way but after the theatrics of yesterday i'm afraid that um it's going to be
00:10:31.180 interesting to see how smith manages to find a solution out of this because um she's scheduled
00:10:41.420 for a press conference this later this afternoon almost this evening i think it's at six or seven
00:10:47.340 don't quote me on that and the rumor is she was going to talk about this about uh the referendum
00:10:54.860 and so it's going to be interesting and that was pre-recorded so i think that press conference was
00:10:59.340 pre-recorded yesterday so i imagine they're re-recording the conference and we might see
00:11:03.340 something different at seven o'clock i mean my gut feeling right now is that uh is that a an
00:11:11.020 independence question on the referent on the upcoming referendum in october is almost off the
00:11:16.700 table all right uh same rules as usual when you answer that you know where you're calling from
00:11:22.620 uh what your name is and uh go ahead with a comment or question uh go ahead call her where
00:11:27.980 Where are you calling from?
00:11:31.300 Hey Marty, thanks for letting me speak.
00:11:34.440 Nick from Edmonton.
00:11:36.660 I heard Mitch say that he was actually told
00:11:42.220 by the premier's office that it would be better
00:11:45.940 to actually go via the referendum route
00:11:48.340 as opposed to the cabinet bringing the question in.
00:11:52.720 Clearly that was the wrong route to take.
00:11:55.100 uh is there any issues now between the party leadership and the premier or what's the premier
00:12:00.980 doing here seems like sabotage to me actually that's a good that's a good point just stay on
00:12:07.140 the line uh let's have a chat that when i saw the events yesterday that was almost the first thought
00:12:11.700 that crossed my mind is like somebody sabotaged this by releasing it prematurely to the press
00:12:16.820 right um listen at this point i i don't i don't nothing's off the table to me right i mean we
00:12:25.620 we've seen everything we've seen we've seen injunctions we've seen court battles we've seen
00:12:30.180 both sides fighting like i i i honestly don't know what to make of it um so i'm assuming you're a
00:12:38.020 pro-independence well yes i am but i'm a little confused as to the attack the party's taking
00:12:44.500 I think it's clear that there's a conflict now between the party and the leadership.
00:12:48.700 The leadership is, I guess, not a sovereignist.
00:12:52.340 Well, the party is.
00:12:54.300 So you square the circle, right?
00:12:58.020 Well, I mean, there's only one way for me for her to square the circle, and that's to go with the membership, right?
00:13:04.980 And the membership is beyond just the party and the people, the MLAs.
00:13:09.700 the membership is the is the 30 000 uh ucp members that meet at agms and the and that
00:13:16.980 that membership is pushing her towards uh towards a referendum and towards um severing ties with
00:13:24.340 ottawa and and i i i part of me can see that she's trying to play the the the fine line it's a tight
00:13:31.380 rope and she's trying to please everybody but at some point she's gonna have to i guess by definition
00:13:37.060 go with what the leadership wants does that make sense well it does but i'm a little also confused
00:13:43.380 by the fact that you decided to pile on nine more questions on top of our referendum questions so
00:13:49.220 i'm a little suspicious of her motives here but i don't know what do you think about that yeah
00:13:53.620 no um i i've said this before i mean my opinion of what danielle's doing changes really weekly
00:14:01.300 you can ask me this question today today i'm confused you asked me the question a month ago
00:14:06.340 i i had more clarity you know and then and well if you asked me the question last week
00:14:11.620 when she's all gleefully meeting with uh mark carney and and bragging about this pipeline deal 0.99
00:14:17.460 and everything else then i see her as as uh as being a full-on federalist trying to keep alberta
00:14:24.820 within canada and then and then today i think we might see something different she's really
00:14:29.300 really really trying to please everyone and i think at the end of the day that's going to be
00:14:32.900 almost impossible to do there's no win-win there's no win-win-win-win right like the win-win-win is
00:14:39.300 is satisfy the party satisfy the separatist stay in power keep nenshi at bay keep ottawa
00:14:46.820 you know in check i mean the win-win-win is difficult and and i think we as a party have
00:14:52.260 as a membership have asked have sort of chosen one path for her which is like push for independence
00:14:57.860 but she's she's stubbornly trying to find a win-win-win somewhere that's my thoughts thanks
00:15:04.320 nick any party comments or that's good nick well i i kind of wanted to actually harken back to my
00:15:12.300 first question with regards to the referendum itself uh because it seems to me mitch uh was
00:15:19.280 actually misled by the party in even starting to get signatures for the referendum um because
00:15:26.280 but not the party, but in the Premier's office, basically wanting to have this initiative from
00:15:33.240 the bottom up, where it clearly should have come from the top down, where the cabinet should have
00:15:39.640 actually fielded the question. So that's kind of what really makes me scratch my head. I mean,
00:15:46.520 is she not responsible to her party chair at all? How does this even work?
00:15:53.960 yeah no lots to unpack there and and the other thing that i'll add to that that that i've also
00:15:59.400 been a little bit disappointed and and and i'm disappointed with this in a lot of governments
00:16:03.640 lately is it she some days i think she's moving too fast i'm always critical of governments who
00:16:09.560 move too fast even if they're moving in my favor i'm crit so you know she she passed these citizens
00:16:15.400 well uh kenny passed this citizens initiatives act but it didn't really get a test until recently
00:16:21.000 with uh lukasic and and and uh and sylvester but then it failed some quick first passes right
00:16:27.880 remember the the judge last year didn't approve the initial question and then it got slapped and
00:16:32.600 she changed the law quickly and then and now you know i don't like that i don't like uh making laws
00:16:39.480 uh back and forth between you know the courts and the government and and then adjusting on the fly
00:16:44.920 like maybe maybe there needs to be a rethought on on the whole process um yeah appreciate the call
00:16:51.400 nick thanks for calling in have a good one yeah you do um yeah it's um yeah that's a that's a real
00:16:59.720 frustration that's a real frustration of mine and that's a real frustration of a lot of other people
00:17:03.880 right like the the the law in this instance i get that i get that governments pass a law and then
00:17:11.000 the law has to be tested and some laws don't get tested very often um you know as an example the
00:17:17.480 emergency measures act it got passed like 30 years ago and finally gets enacted and then the courts
00:17:22.760 decide that it was incorrect now the government has time to change it in this instance the citizens
00:17:29.960 initiative act was passed a you know less than less than a decade ago less than five years ago
00:17:35.240 kenny passes it and then it gets tested and it fails gets adjusted gets tried again
00:17:40.440 fails gets adjusted like i don't like i don't like that's not a very good process that's the
00:17:45.640 engineer in me speaking like you know uh design by trial and error is not my favorite way it's an
00:17:51.720 approach you can do it but um sometimes you look a little bit silly doing it that way and so um
00:17:58.440 Well, we'll see. So there's, you know, is the referendum, is the possibility of an independence question on the referendum dead? I'm weighing it 50-50 at this point, and we'll see what the Premier has to say later this afternoon.
00:18:16.660 um she did have though a quick press conference or not a press conference there was a there was
00:18:23.180 an event this morning it was uh it was televised or on video she did shuffle her cabinet and and
00:18:31.720 again uh this is so new haven't had a chance to completely digest it uh people here uh derek uh
00:18:39.600 had a piece on this derek predicted some of this quite accurately and um so go read derek's piece
00:18:46.580 on that but two ministers stepped down uh in the last couple of days um all right well let's go with
00:18:54.100 the call on the line i i really prefer chatting with people than reading sort of my script but
00:18:59.060 i gotta remember where i'm at so i'm talking about ministers so go ahead uh caller where are you
00:19:02.420 calling from cochran hey and what's your name stew stew how's it going stew not too bad um
00:19:13.780 Um, Daniel Smith should fire the people that pushed her into the MOU.
00:19:18.180 That's my opinion.
00:19:20.000 What do you think?
00:19:21.400 The MOU?
00:19:22.140 Say that again?
00:19:23.200 Fire who?
00:19:25.280 The people that pushed Daniel Smith into setting up the MOU.
00:19:31.440 I wish you would have called a few minutes from now when I'll dive into the MOU,
00:19:38.420 but I will dive into the MOU.
00:19:39.880 I, I, I used to think that maybe somebody else came up with the MOU and that she was, you know, my, my original theory on the MOU was simply that she had a sort of an image problem and some difficulties with, uh, with the separatists and, and, and the NDP and others.
00:20:00.400 and my opinion last year because remember last year when the mou came it came just before
00:20:05.140 the annual general meeting in edmonton so i used to think that um she had some difficulties at the
00:20:11.380 time carney had difficulties at the time and i used to think that they just got together
00:20:15.340 slapped together this mou to try and find something you know to to benefit each other
00:20:20.340 both could talk about it positively and i agree and last year i used to think it was a bad deal
00:20:25.760 i think it's an even worse deal now that i've seen the details and we'll talk about i'll i'll
00:20:30.880 i want to talk about it a little bit later not not just now but i so uh but to your but to your
00:20:36.640 point i don't i think she's i think she had a part in it i don't think she just gave it to somebody
00:20:40.720 else interesting yeah well that was a big mistake yeah well we'll see so okay so i i've noted it
00:20:49.360 dan thanks for that i'll i'll uh i'll i'll bring it up in a minute here i'll keep talking about it
00:20:54.480 it but um yeah i appreciate the call thanks for taking my call you bet um yeah i'm tempted to
00:21:02.320 jump right into the mou because it is something i wanted to talk about but i but i i just want
00:21:06.240 to finish on the two ministers that that resigned yesterday or this week uh nate horner is the um
00:21:13.200 was the finance minister and uh you know he's been a minister for about uh five years now it's
00:21:21.600 his second term and me personally i'm not sad to see him go i don't think he did the best job as a
00:21:28.480 finance minister um that's one of the things that i'm very critical of this government is that
00:21:34.480 the budgets have outpaced uh population growth and um and uh inflation and and they just i really
00:21:44.420 wish that government that alberta would bring its budget under control and shrink the size of
00:21:49.920 government and so i don't think nate gave smith the ammunition necessary to do that now he's gone
00:21:57.340 he's simply saying that he's just not running again in a year from now and is stepping down
00:22:03.200 to give whoever is going to replace him time to get up to speed well um i can and cannot buy that
00:22:12.180 i mean that's um you know i i think something else happened there but we we won't know maybe
00:22:17.780 you guys have an opinion on what happened to nate horner and then matt jones he stepped down he was
00:22:24.020 in charge of hospitals i think for him it's more and back to nate i think nate might have pushed
00:22:30.820 the wrong way against smith and she kind of might have said you know you need to step aside and he
00:22:36.500 kind of got displaced and and that's my basic theory uh matt jones i think just literally his
00:22:44.820 is legit he's not seeking reelection and i think being in that portfolio in charge of hospitals
00:22:51.460 and everything else again he didn't do a very good job there uh just this week there was another
00:22:56.020 story of somebody you know dying while waiting in an emergency room somewhere and and so um you
00:23:03.540 need somebody really tough to want to tackle alberta health and and reform that uh we've
00:23:10.260 talked about you know tackling uh smith where smith was a big help in tackling uh education
00:23:17.060 and going against the teachers but she hasn't been very vocal when it comes to going after
00:23:21.460 alberta health and she's left that entirely to her ministers and her ministers are kind of
00:23:26.660 struggling to bring alberta health under control so they um they they they both resigned and then
00:23:32.980 this morning she made the announcement of who's stepping in and uh horner's being replaced by
00:23:39.220 nixon which i find to be a completely interesting case again it um he's been a long time minister
00:23:47.940 he's uh he's he wasn't in this cabinet actually that's an interesting thing he was snub
00:23:53.860 recently but he's been a minister in the past and uh he um but he has zero financial background
00:24:02.100 zero whatsoever and i think that's a super critical you know to me the the finance minister
00:24:08.340 is kind of like the second in command and i really don't see nixon as being the second in command so
00:24:13.700 i'm so again we'll we'll time will tell why he was put there um i'm sure you if you guys have
00:24:20.180 opinions let me know and i actually can't even remember uh who got matt jones's position i think
00:24:28.500 it was if i um i was gonna say and uh lagrange i thought maybe got shuffled around but um sorry i
00:24:37.620 don't i i didn't write that down anyways that that's what it was this morning so um some some
00:24:43.940 interesting development so it should make for an interesting press release or press conference
00:24:47.780 later this afternoon uh well i guess we're gonna okay so if nobody's calling i guess we'll
00:24:53.620 this does tie in nicely i wanted to talk about the mou and um and and i think i want to dive
00:25:00.420 into that one a little bit more right so last week carney came to alberta and um him and danielle
00:25:09.860 again did the press conference holding up kind of like the trump thing you know they hold the
00:25:13.780 mou with their signatures on it and stuff like that and the mou carney would let me let me step
00:25:21.300 back i i predicted a week a couple of weeks ago before the by elections right when carney still
00:25:29.140 had his minority government he was focused on censorship and he was focused on really minor
00:25:36.780 stuff you know like food stamps for people and and uh gst rebates and stuff like that he wasn't
00:25:43.420 rocking the boat he wasn't he was proposing stuff but he wasn't moving on anything and i i said this
00:25:48.380 right very clearly that once he got his majority even though it's small once he got his majority
00:25:53.720 we would see a different carny and we are seeing that different carny immediately the carny that
00:25:59.320 came visiting here this week is the carny from from from the last decade it's the carny who's pro
00:26:06.920 um who who truly believes in climate change as a calamity it's the carny who believes in uh
00:26:14.040 in net zero and then electrifying and doing all these things that's the carny that we're seeing
00:26:19.720 now and when he came back this you know a year later after signing the mou there's been no
00:26:25.400 progress nobody nobody has stepped up to build a pipeline and carney and smith both um basically
00:26:35.720 signed an agreement to increase the um carbon tax so john can you quickly bring up the graph
00:26:45.720 on canada's greenhouse gas emissions because i think it it sort of explains this quite nicely so
00:26:53.480 that's don't you don't need to go hard into the details but that's canada's greenhouse gas
00:26:59.640 emissions you know for the last 25 years kind of thing and there's a little arrow there in the
00:27:05.720 middle which is uh 2005 which is the year that they they at the paris accord and other accords
00:27:13.880 they agreed that that was the baseline year which i i can't zoom in i think it's 862 or something
00:27:19.480 like that and and we agreed that we would reduce not we i would never agree to this but the liberals
00:27:26.760 agreed that we would reduce canada would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent lower
00:27:33.320 than the number that's on the screen right now and if you look at the and if you put that number if
00:27:37.880 you put a red line somewhere on that on that graph it'd be like so low we're never ever ever ever
00:27:44.920 ever going to meet our greenhouse gas emissions not the way we're going and so i'll come back to
00:27:50.200 that um but let's go to the caller on the line but i definitely want to come back to that go ahead
00:27:55.800 where are you calling from and name please hey marty it's maverro's from sudbury holy smokes
00:28:03.640 Yeah, almost my old stomping ground.
00:28:07.080 Good.
00:28:07.300 How are you?
00:28:09.380 Oh, you were a next-door neighbor for a while, I guess?
00:28:12.220 A long, long time ago.
00:28:15.200 I'm 58, so about 60 years ago, we lived in Timmins.
00:28:22.220 Oh, nice.
00:28:23.220 Yeah.
00:28:23.580 Timmins is great.
00:28:24.880 Okay, I've got a tough one for you today because I kind of agree with what you're saying
00:28:31.720 in that. You're saying that Carney isn't giving up his net zero. I don't think he ever intended
00:28:37.000 to. I think that's still the ideology that's cheaply driving him and most of his decisions.
00:28:43.840 But I really don't have a clear answer as to why he would politically risk his position,
00:28:51.360 because it's a weak minority. It's incredibly weak. I mean, pardon me, a majority. It can
00:28:58.640 break at any moment. He's got people leaving in the summer. They're going to possibly have
00:29:04.320 elections to come up. So I don't think he's ever been in a position of strength that he's going to
00:29:10.460 risk that political capital by signing the MOU. I'm wondering how, in your mind, he justifies
00:29:19.940 this risk. Because if I listen to the mainstream media, they're talking on the exact opposite of
00:29:26.580 of what we're talking about here at western standard they're like this guy's crazy he wants
00:29:31.300 a pipeline he doesn't care about the environment they're saying the exact opposite so he's risking
00:29:36.900 a lot and i'm wondering how how you uh yeah yeah explain that in your mind how no i i hear you i
00:29:44.180 hear you i mean and stay on the line like you're right like when you just remember when he signed
00:29:48.340 the mou last year he pissed off steven gilbeau to the point where gilbeau like i'm out of cabinet
00:29:53.220 right and um and right yeah yeah if you read uh quebec media in particular he's losing a lot of
00:30:00.980 popularity but but but he's sacrificing a little i i think he does currently have a minority but
00:30:07.940 if you look at his projections in the polls and whatnot if there was an election tomorrow he'd
00:30:12.900 still win like he would still win right so in fact i'm surprised he hasn't called an election because
00:30:18.420 i think he is he is still that popular so he's he's he's i think he's playing that game a little
00:30:23.680 bit he knows that he's got an opportunity to make a few unpopular decisions to win a little bit of
00:30:29.600 support and a little bit of time i don't think he's fundamentally worried about losing a general
00:30:34.940 election if there was one and and the other reason i don't think he's worried is a he is fairly
00:30:40.060 popular but he was installed right i mean he like there's powers that be and when and and so he's
00:30:46.460 He's cocky, confident to the point of being cocky because he knows he's not going to lose.
00:30:51.240 Does that make sense?
00:30:54.060 I would agree with your statement that there was some level of installation there
00:30:58.460 because it wasn't a democratic process by which he was initially put in.
00:31:03.000 He was just placed there, and then we ended up with an election shortly thereafter.
00:31:09.600 And I'm going to say he's democratically elected officially, yes,
00:31:14.740 but he appeared in an entirely undemocratic way
00:31:19.320 where he just suddenly appeared
00:31:20.720 and took over the leadership of the party
00:31:23.000 by some flimsy rules
00:31:24.660 that probably should be looked at in the future.
00:31:28.300 Yeah, now let's expand on that just a little bit.
00:31:31.300 So you're calling from out east.
00:31:32.600 So what, like, I mean, to me,
00:31:34.720 he's, as an Albertan,
00:31:37.040 I can see that he's gaining a little bit of popularity here
00:31:40.000 and it's working well for him.
00:31:41.780 Is he really losing that much out east?
00:31:44.140 like is he pissing off people out east like friends not talking say in his cabinet but
00:31:49.080 around you are people pissed off at him no because i'm in sudbury and you know the people
00:31:55.720 who are in the northern ontario tend to think a little bit more independently than those in
00:32:02.080 the major cities so we still have a dedicated movement towards you know uh values that are
00:32:09.360 more traditionally based i would say than the big cities which are much more
00:32:13.360 you know they they ebb and flow away from uh mainstream ideas they they reject capitalism
00:32:20.600 all of a sudden they take on woke ideologies they take on all sorts of crap as almost like a uh
00:32:27.180 fact yeah whereas that didn't hit that didn't hit uh i think cities like uh timmins or
00:32:34.180 saint-marie or sudbury as hard now you said something you said go ahead yeah no no go ahead
00:32:43.220 no you said something interesting though so you think you said he's going to lose some people in
00:32:48.100 the summer do you what what rumor are you hearing about losing people because i i i the only person
00:32:53.860 i can think of he might lose out of cabinet is nate uh s guy or or smith right yeah anybody else
00:33:00.580 I don't have anybody extra on top of that, but I'm just saying I've heard rumors from the big networks like CBC and CTV that this has created a backlash in caucus in general, not within the cabinet for certain, but definitely in caucus, pushing for this pipeline because they see it as a rejection of net zero values.
00:33:24.540 so there could be further dissension in the ranks and northern perspective is one show that talks
00:33:31.460 about this yeah uh those guys on there you know you'll we'll let you go here in a second but keep
00:33:39.160 listening to the show but when i will talk about the mou and the pipeline you know he like this
00:33:44.300 mou for me as an albertan it's all about greenhouse gas and net zero like he he he you know he he made
00:33:51.960 danielle smith increase the carbon tax and we have to build this thing called the pathways alliance
00:33:58.200 like we have to build this giant co2 capture system so he's selling it that way hard and in
00:34:05.160 the short term in the short term i mean if the people out east are upset about the pipeline
00:34:10.760 what he'll probably remind him is he'll do the same thing he did to be sealed he'll put his hand
00:34:14.920 like this he'd go like i promised them a pipeline but that pipeline is never happening you know like 0.93
00:34:19.560 in the short term uh co2 capture will happen i mean that's what scares me is that in the chicken
00:34:25.400 and egg thing we're the what alberta's committing first and i don't think he will follow through on
00:34:30.040 his promise interesting right yeah one of the things there one one of the things they're upset
00:34:35.800 about already is the reduced uh carbon tax so they're like saying how did they get it so low
00:34:42.200 for alberta now they're going to want it low for every other province whereas alberta's saying
00:34:48.040 this isn't low enough i think it's 140 right i saw your reaction there yeah we don't 140 isn't
00:34:53.880 isn't good but out east they're like no no it should be higher it was originally said higher
00:34:58.360 so it should be higher and now other provinces are going to take it lower this so it's interesting
00:35:04.120 that they yeah the kind of arguments you get are the exact opposite this this awesome thanks for
00:35:09.720 that i mean that ties nicely into what i'll finish on my chat on greenhouse gas so appreciate the
00:35:14.280 call absolutely thank you um hey john just scroll down uh i think we need to recognize once in a
00:35:20.280 while we get these uh super chats right so uh somebody rc lamore there said that uh less than
00:35:27.320 30 days politicians and bureaucrats are going to be arrested and jailed for treason i wish we could
00:35:32.680 have a follow-up to that comment i'm i'm wondering where that comment comes from it's uh uh you know
00:35:39.400 we've never when's the last time somebody in this prov in this country was arrested for treason i
00:35:43.880 think it goes all the way back to louis real so i i hear those comments all the time i'm kind of
00:35:47.880 smiling i i've had some interactions with rc and i think he's a bit maybe pulling my leg but uh
00:35:53.800 thank you for that comment um what do you got there you got another question i thought the mou
00:36:00.120 was danny's way of showing that working with the feds doesn't work that's a spin right i mean um
00:36:06.840 um it that's a possibility for sure so let me let me uh let me quickly finish on uh on my
00:36:13.160 graph there so um at the end of the day albert canada is not going to meet its greenhouse gas
00:36:20.120 emissions right and and i think carney is still committed to that and as the caller just said a
00:36:24.680 lot of people have bought into this narrative and they believe in climate change and they want us
00:36:29.640 to do something now if if um if you see what if you break down where canada's greenhouse gas
00:36:36.900 emissions come from sure about half of them come from industry and then industry includes trucking
00:36:43.180 rail transport stuff like that but then a big chunk of it comes from oil production in the
00:36:48.400 process of making oil in alberta we produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions the other half of
00:36:53.340 canada's greenhouse gas emissions is personal it's people burning gas in their furnaces at home and
00:36:58.920 oil in their furnaces and and gasoline in their cars and stuff like that and the targets that
00:37:04.200 the government have set are absolutely ridiculous and and if if they were honestly truly serious
00:37:10.680 about meeting them then they would have to go after the public and and you know force people
00:37:17.080 into driving less flying less burning building smaller homes and we know that's never going to
00:37:22.440 happen so they keep going about it the way that the only way that they can which is targeting
00:37:27.160 industry in these most ridiculous ways and here in alberta this host this whole pathways alliance
00:37:33.720 building a 30 billion dollar system to uh inject carbon dioxide underground makes almost everything
00:37:41.400 else that comes after that uneconomical and you you can get rid of that graph there john where but
00:37:47.720 so and and and carney keeps talking about this right so i'm i'm worried about that because
00:37:53.800 danielle signed on board with this she's gonna do she's agreed to keep pushing
00:38:00.040 the it's a chicken and egg right so let me let me let me continue on that right um
00:38:06.200 well let me give you a very very very personal experience so i worked for trans canada and i
00:38:11.160 was working for trans canada when we uh were developing keystone and keystone excel and so
00:38:18.440 let me tell you how that works right so for when we were thinking of building keystone we it's a
00:38:25.000 chicken and egg thing so we went we sent people to go meet with industry trans canada's got an idea
00:38:31.160 it's like we think there's value in building a pipeline from canada down to houston so then we
00:38:36.520 send out crews of of marketers and people to meet with industry and we asked we asked synovus cnrl
00:38:43.160 husky all the producers what kind of forecast do you have in the future how much oil are you going
00:38:48.200 to produce and where do you think you'll sell that oil and they all came back to us saying i
00:38:52.760 can do a hundred thousand barrel i could do a hundred this guy can do a hundred and so we all
00:38:57.640 start to you know agree so you got a bunch of producers that said we will come if you build
00:39:04.280 the pipeline we will commit to filling the pipeline you see how it works so you you need to mutually
00:39:11.480 trust each other so when after a bunch of negotiations trans canada said okay it looks
00:39:17.320 like we could build a pipeline for about 500 000 barrels a day because we got five we got producers
00:39:22.920 committed to 500 000 barrels a day for the next 30 years so it's all profitable it's all worth
00:39:28.280 doing and and then and then everybody signed agreements and trans canada said we'll build
00:39:33.400 this pipeline within these tolerances give or take you know 10 billion dollars give or take
00:39:38.200 and and then if it's a little bit over we'll buy the overage but if it's right on target
00:39:43.000 you guys are committed to producing and it worked and we built the pipeline and everybody's happy 0.93
00:39:48.680 if you try and do that today um first of all the trans canadas of the world they got burnt 1.00
00:39:55.000 they're not interested in doing this anymore because their 10 billion dollar pipelines end
00:39:59.400 up being 20 and 30 billion dollar pipelines it's too complicated and the producers they're
00:40:05.160 not interested in doing it because they don't think the pipelines will get built
00:40:08.520 and then the people who finance this they're not interested in coming here to finance this
00:40:13.000 because they it takes too long the dollar that they invest take sits on the sideline for too
00:40:19.120 long doesn't have a return on investment you see what's happening and there's too many regulations
00:40:23.380 so how do you break that vicious cycle well the way to me the way to break that vicious cycle
00:40:30.460 is for the government to bring back a climate an environment a regulatory framework where people
00:40:39.240 will want to invest because all these parties that i talked about they're worried about risk
00:40:44.840 they're worried about how long things will take changing regulations changing governments being
00:40:51.420 competitive with other jurisdictions right and so and and in this country how do we break that cycle
00:40:58.140 what happened in the last 10 years the like something broke in the last 10 years too many
00:41:02.680 regulations too many too much talk about greenhouse gas and stuff like that so if carney's serious
00:41:08.200 about building pipelines here he would have to piss off the people out east like we just heard
00:41:13.160 the caller say and he would have to repeal bill c69 bill 47 he would have to get rid of the tanker
00:41:19.960 ban he would have to stop talking about he'd have to stop imposing um requirements that the that the
00:41:27.400 like why is he deciding on you know decarbonized oil let the client decide what kind of oil and i
00:41:34.120 And I want to come back on that decarbonized oil.
00:41:36.280 So, can you guys tell?
00:41:38.740 I'm a little bit agitated right now.
00:41:40.300 I love this topic.
00:41:41.400 So, go ahead, caller.
00:41:42.680 Where are you calling from?
00:41:45.120 Hey, Marty.
00:41:45.820 Jesse and GP here.
00:41:47.040 Hey, Jesse.
00:41:47.660 We've talked before, right?
00:41:49.840 Oh, yeah.
00:41:50.520 Yeah, yeah.
00:41:52.980 I'm wondering, do you think that UCP has given the electorate the opportunity to see for themselves that this MOU or any other subsequent agreement that's beholden to carbon tax?
00:42:01.960 is not the right direction for Alberta within Canada?
00:42:08.060 Rephrase that a little bit.
00:42:10.060 Expand on your thought on that one. 0.60
00:42:14.340 Well, I think perhaps Danielle is creating
00:42:18.960 or the UCP is creating this MOU
00:42:20.860 or the agreement or updates to the agreement
00:42:22.840 that just happened
00:42:23.520 that shows how we're beholden to this carbon tax
00:42:27.160 and that it's probably not in the best direction
00:42:30.180 for Alberta for carbon tax, right?
00:42:33.740 And then it brings it to the public's attention more so
00:42:36.840 because the mainstream media or the legacy media
00:42:39.260 is not going to, which is actually kind of funny
00:42:42.260 because they're talking about more carbon tax,
00:42:45.040 which is driving more people to Alberta independence,
00:42:47.140 which is probably our only viable path, in my opinion.
00:42:51.580 Yeah, no, I guess you're sort of the second person
00:42:55.900 to bring up that angle today, right?
00:43:00.180 you know, is she setting up Carney for failure is basically what you're asking, right?
00:43:07.460 Pretty much.
00:43:08.200 Pretty much.
00:43:08.500 Well, and for the, yeah, so the electorate can then do their own research so they understand that
00:43:13.760 there's no getting away from this carbon tax with the current Liberal government
00:43:18.800 or any other subsequent government going forward in the Federation.
00:43:23.980 Yeah, it's an interesting argument.
00:43:25.980 I mean, I mean, you know, like it also goes back to last week when she made the announcement and we're making the announcement.
00:43:32.140 There was surprisingly nobody from industry there, right?
00:43:34.440 Like if this was a good deal, like if truly this was a good deal, there would have been right over her shoulder.
00:43:39.580 There would have been somebody from Synovus and Meg Energy and whatever, all the all the big boys.
00:43:44.180 But they weren't there.
00:43:48.480 No.
00:43:48.920 and previous uh well previous that week previous they just came out with a statement a few of them
00:43:55.080 indicating how the uh current climate is not conducive to investment due to the carbon tax
00:44:01.640 right yeah yeah no if i have to weigh like is she doing it to look is she doing it to appease
00:44:09.560 her base here and look like she's or part of her base part of albertans and is she doing it to to
00:44:15.000 look like she's working with carney instead of against him or is she or is she doing it to um
00:44:21.560 as some sophisticated education campaign so that we will all finally realize what's happening i'm
00:44:28.200 gonna go with the first one right that she's genuinely just trying to work with carney and
00:44:32.840 and like i said at the beginning of the show she's navigating she's walking a tight rope and trying to
00:44:37.880 please a lot of people that's my gut that's the one i'm going with i mean and and the reason i'm
00:44:44.280 still going with that gut is like we just had how many other nations now have dropped their carbon
00:44:51.160 taxes and have dropped all talk about net zero and carbon and i've bailed out of the paris accord
00:44:57.720 i mean even the united nations last week basically said hey sorry our bad you know all our predictions
00:45:02.920 about the climate change were wrong right like we're we're we seem to be one of the last places
00:45:09.240 hanging on to that and and and i and when and carney's one of the guys hanging on to it now
00:45:16.040 the bigger question to me is is he genuinely does he genuinely think that way or is he just milking
00:45:22.680 it and trying to be profitable for you know like selling heat pumps for brookfield as long as
00:45:27.400 possible like what is it when it comes to carney yeah and he's keeping his defense and his pocket
00:45:34.040 books um all topped up right yeah and uh i agree and one last thing i'll just say that you know
00:45:40.620 obviously that statement from the gentleman in the east uh regarding the higher carbon tax and
00:45:44.760 how the east wants wants more carbon tax and it's not enough we need to do more clearly indicates
00:45:50.680 that our only viable path is saying yes yeah to that independent flow okay cool i'll let you go
00:45:59.040 uh but uh appreciate the call and uh and as usual i mean you call every week almost i really
00:46:04.320 appreciate it but you you i'll let you go but you made me think of one quick thing so thanks
00:46:09.680 later you bet um you know he he brought up he brought up the east and and again i'm going to
00:46:17.040 say there's a bit of hypocrisy here on the east when they talk about carbon tax and i said it
00:46:21.280 earlier right they they they they want to help the environment but not when it what not if it affects
00:46:28.160 them right so they want to a lot of people are like that a lot not just these a lot of people
00:46:33.300 talk a good story until it affects them ask somebody out east if they're willing to give up
00:46:38.980 the you know go to half the horsepower on their cars or or be forced to smaller uh buildings or
00:46:44.620 things like that and i think you'll get a different reaction and and and an example of that i've always
00:46:49.420 pushed for this right and it ties again to this mou you got carny coming here telling us that the
00:46:54.660 world wants decarbonized oil and then you got everybody out east going yeah yeah yeah everybody
00:46:59.180 wants decarbonized oil i disagree it's not up to him to decide what our customers want how about
00:47:05.420 we ask our customers and and and if i make a deal with china and i sell them oil and they're happy
00:47:11.160 to buy my oil are they going to come here and see how i'm making that oil i highly doubt it
00:47:15.840 and to bring that argument closer to home i guarantee you that if i'm at the pump if i put
00:47:21.640 you know you go to fill up at shell in or petro canada in eastern canada and if at the pump i had
00:47:27.060 you know regular gas premium premium plus and then i had this category at the bottom that said
00:47:33.400 decarbonized and um and that the decarbonized was like 50 more than the regular gas because it's
00:47:40.500 decarbonized because you get some offset credit how many people do you think will actually pick
00:47:45.540 up the decarbonized one and put that in their car not a lot i mean it's the same argument that's been
00:47:51.160 made remember remember like 20 years ago mutual funds start and businesses started talking about
00:47:57.480 you know oh we we are ethical funds we don't invest in sweatshops in china and we we only do
00:48:04.740 green this and green that all those mutual funds failed because they were novelty but nobody bought
00:48:10.400 into them because at the end of the day the mighty dollar speaks right i mean there's so
00:48:16.320 many examples of that, like go to, you know, people talk about, you know, like I said,
00:48:23.520 go to a Walmart and put apples that are there that are organic apples, net zero apples and
00:48:29.700 regular apples. And these ones are a buck, two bucks and three bucks. And you tell, and you
00:48:34.000 watch all day long, who's buying what you'll see. So that's where it's interesting to observe the
00:48:38.960 difference between what people say, which we often refer to as being virtue signaling versus what
00:48:44.540 they actually do and and so i find i find that disconnect fascinating and um so at the end of
00:48:52.220 the day the mou last week was i think a disaster um and and i don't i i guess you guys are seeing
00:49:02.540 it the way the same way i don't see the win-win i just don't see why danielle keeps going down
00:49:07.740 this path because or carney for that matter well i guess i see why carney's doing it because he
00:49:14.540 He's buying a bit of favor from Alberta.
00:49:17.620 And he has a, well, again, I can go both ways on this, right?
00:49:22.040 We've talked about this.
00:49:23.540 Carney has an advantage of letting us go.
00:49:25.600 We could go for, if Alberta disappears and goes its own way,
00:49:29.360 then there will never be a conservative government in this country ever again.
00:49:34.300 So I can see how Carney would have a reason to want to piss us off
00:49:38.380 and let us go on our own.
00:49:39.660 But then is he more interested in the money, hypocritically speaking?
00:49:43.260 uh very interesting um okay well we gotta um let's let's keep going down i got a couple of
00:49:50.440 the other big story i wanted to talk about last week again it all ties into some of this in one
00:49:56.240 way or another um who here was upset about the announcement regarding the snowbirds like i i i
00:50:04.100 was and uh so the snowbirds um aerial demonstration right every almost every country in the world has
00:50:13.220 an aerial demonstration team so we we had uh we had a predecessor to the snowbirds i can't remember
00:50:21.060 what they were called but well i wasn't around but we've had an aerial demonstration team as far back
00:50:26.920 as like right after world war ii so in the 50s and 60s we had aerial demonstration teams in canada
00:50:32.880 and then in the 1970s the snowbird there was a naming contest and the snowbirds uh the demonstration
00:50:41.560 team became the snowbirds and then the snowbirds started flying those little planes that you see
00:50:47.080 right there those little planes are called tutors and so in canada in every military every air force
00:50:53.640 around the world needs to train pilots and when you train pilots and if you you you start training
00:50:59.240 pilots in planes that are called trainers so trainers are special planes that are more easily
00:51:05.000 easy to handle more forgiving and usually have two seats either side by side or back to back so that
00:51:10.600 the the the student can be in the front and the instructor in the back and when you start in the
00:51:16.340 canadian air force your training your first stage of training to become a pilot is in a propeller
00:51:22.040 driven plane so most pilots learn in a propeller driven plane and then some will stop there and
00:51:28.380 then they go on to propeller driven planes like the hercules and other things like that
00:51:32.280 but some of our guys in canada we we've we've had jets as part of our arsenal since the 1950s right
00:51:40.280 We had Sabres, Voodoos, Canucks, the F-18.
00:51:45.260 And in the future, we're going to get the F-35.
00:51:47.680 So because we are an Air Force that had jets, we had little prop planes for training, and then we had little jets for training.
00:51:55.280 And that's the plane you're seeing on the screen right now.
00:51:57.340 The Tudor, it's called Tudor, T-U-T-O-R, teaching, Tudor, was a small Canadian-made plane developed for specifically to train future jet fighters.
00:52:10.280 so we've had tutors in this country for since like the 60s but somewhere along the way in the 1970s
00:52:17.080 the tutors were adopted by the snowbirds as the demonstration plane so who who's seen the them
00:52:25.560 fly i've seen them fly hundreds of times right like a a canada day celebration is without the
00:52:31.800 snowbirds is unimaginable you've seen them at air shows i mean we're lucky we live in alberta i used
00:52:36.680 used to live up north cold lake is an amazing base we got the bombing run at uh at um uh god
00:52:44.580 i'm drawing a blank but um so the snowbirds have been around forever but those little planes are
00:52:51.000 getting old and and people in the military in the air force have been saying those planes are getting
00:52:57.580 old forever and ever i mean those planes are 60 years old so somewhere around like in the in the
00:53:04.060 90s, they started saying they're old. In the 2000s, they're saying they're old. In the 2010s,
00:53:08.940 they were saying they're old. And the liberals put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off,
00:53:15.000 put it off, and never found a replacement jet trainer. Now, we found a replacement propeller
00:53:24.780 trainer. So, for the last few years, we've had a propeller-driven plane that's used for training,
00:53:30.640 but we don't have a jet trainer which is completely remarkable because we're about to buy
00:53:36.760 we've bought the most sophisticated jets in the planet or some of the most sophisticated jet we
00:53:41.480 bought the f-35s we collaborated with the americans and other nations to develop this really amazing
00:53:47.120 can you find a picture of the f-35 uh john um so we we bought the f-35 we're about to start taking
00:53:54.420 well maybe we won't because the liberals seem to change their mind on everything all the time but
00:53:59.620 But at last news, at last I checked, we were taking possession of the F-35s, but we have nothing to train the new pilots on the F-35s.
00:54:10.160 Never mind the F-35s.
00:54:11.440 We have no jet to train the new pilots.
00:54:13.860 So we can train pilots on prop planes, but we have no jets.
00:54:17.520 And that's weird.
00:54:19.740 And so now the tutors are finally so old that the government this week said they're unsafe to fly and they're going to let them fly for this season.
00:54:29.620 and then and then that's it and then no snowbirds until we get a replacement plane and i thought
00:54:36.040 okay so we're getting a replacement jet trainer no we're getting the replacement plane that the
00:54:41.580 snowbirds are getting is the is the prop driven version and we get those in 2030 so for four
00:54:47.680 years we will have no snowbirds and when the snowbirds reappear in 2030 they'll be flying in
00:54:54.200 in propeller driven planes and everybody's like well they still go fast it won't be the same man
00:54:59.220 watching propeller planes versus watching jets is not going to be the same so you know and and this
00:55:06.740 carney yesterday in a press release said something like well i inherited this problem really you
00:55:12.580 inherited this problem the liberals have been in power since 2015. the minister of defense
00:55:18.420 the minister of procurement the minister of all these ministers they're all the same people so
00:55:23.300 maybe you carney are different but the whole organization that you work for has been in power
00:55:28.260 for 11 years going on 12 and you're trying to blame this on your predecessor this is just pure
00:55:34.100 lack of planning um and there's there's no other explanation for it and and and sadly it's it's
00:55:42.420 just another nail in the coffin for the poor canadian forces and military like i feel bad
00:55:49.220 for people who dreamed of of joining the air force you know you're a you're a 12 year old kid
00:55:55.940 who saw the snowbirds a decade ago and then you finally turned 18 you joined the air force you're
00:56:00.900 learning to be a pilot and you're hoping someday to get tapped on the shoulder and go fly with 413
00:56:05.380 squadron and be one of the snowbirds and now you're finding that there will be no snowbirds
00:56:09.460 for the next four years and they'll reappear in 2013 by then think of the institutional knowledge
00:56:15.140 the traditions that will have been lost it is it is so discouraging when i when i see stories like
00:56:20.980 that and and i'm i'm i'm trying to stay positive on behalf of our soldiers because they have an
00:56:26.660 amazing reputation of doing the best with absolutely terrible equipment but this is
00:56:32.660 government incompetence and and it's a double slap in the face when you know that they're wasting
00:56:38.260 money on so many other things and sending money overseas to ukraine and places like that and we
00:56:43.140 can't keep enough money for our guys which led to which is you know we're running out of time but
00:56:50.020 this will maybe be the last thing i talk about so this week all of this came to a head with the
00:56:56.020 americans and uh donald trump indirectly donald trump but the americans announced that they were
00:57:02.340 pausing the canada defense board right so there's this group there's this u.s canada alliance called
00:57:10.020 the the the the the u.s canada defense board where we talk about future strategies together
00:57:17.060 and make sure we're aligned, right?
00:57:19.120 Like when you're making, we do it as part of NATO,
00:57:21.840 but we do it very closely
00:57:23.320 because we're so close to the Americans.
00:57:25.380 So when we buy stuff,
00:57:26.600 we need to make sure it's compatible
00:57:28.020 and we share each other's long-term plans
00:57:30.400 and we share long-term opportunities.
00:57:32.540 Like, hey, if you buy those planes,
00:57:34.580 maybe I can train your guys.
00:57:36.260 And if I buy your boats, maybe you can train my guys.
00:57:39.580 And we collaborate, we plan exercises in the future.
00:57:42.980 We do all those kinds of things.
00:57:44.360 And Trump put an end to that board right now. And it's kind of it's another symbolic, not a symbolic, it's more than symbolic. It's another example of this, this ongoing tension between Carney and Trump is going too far, like it's going too far, right?
00:58:02.240 it served carney well to to to vilify trump and get elected but he's gone too far with this right
00:58:11.280 and so uh and i think that's another example of that um and like trump basically said he's tired
00:58:18.240 that carney's all words right like carney said we're going to increase the spending on military
00:58:23.920 to to more than two percent of our gdp he even bragged about making it five percent well giving
00:58:30.080 raises to our soldiers and spending a few more bucks on upgrading the barracks and fixing the
00:58:35.040 runway at the edmonton airport whatever those although they might have a military application
00:58:40.480 that's not what trump wants when he talks about military spending going up to two percent gdp
00:58:46.160 and and the whole fiasco with the snowbirds is that an example of a missed opportunity
00:58:51.920 we could have just carney could have just sent some generals down to the us and on a shopping
00:58:57.200 trip you know give him five billion bucks and then they could have gone and said we need little
00:59:01.240 trainers what do you got and the u.s would have said well you could buy these t5s or these t6s
00:59:05.880 how many do you want we could have said 20 as a starter the u.s would have said sounds good
00:59:10.220 imagine how how much that would benefit the relationship between our two countries to do
00:59:15.440 something like that but instead the liberals are going to study this problem for the next 30 years
00:59:20.220 they're going to order planes that are bilingual good for minus 50 weather and all sorts of other
00:59:25.460 ridiculous requirements uh what a what a what a what a what a world we live in um all right well
00:59:34.300 listen uh thanks for calling in let so yeah recap i mean it was an interesting week uh it's it's 0.74
00:59:41.200 going to be quiet in the coming days because or coming months now uh here in alberta uh the
00:59:48.060 legislature recessed last week doesn't resume officially until october 27th so now we got four
00:59:53.860 months with no major legislative legislative uh activity going on in alberta uh ottawa's and
01:00:02.100 getting is also in its summer recess so i don't know hopefully we keep finding things to talk
01:00:07.220 about on this show again thanks for calling in it all depends on you guys please don't be shy
01:00:12.340 make sure you join every thursday uh at 1 p.m and um as always thanks for the western standard for
01:00:22.020 giving me the opportunity to share their studio and uh and lending me the space to to have a voice
01:00:28.580 thanks to you guys for calling in make sure you support the western standard it's only ten dollars
01:00:34.260 a month it's a hundred dollars a year if you get a yearly subscription bringing new content like
01:00:38.580 this doesn't come for free we need a few bucks to buy a new switchboard by the way and um the
01:00:44.260 link for for the subscriptions right there on the screen www.westernstandardnews-subscription
01:00:50.820 and I hope to see you guys next Thursday.
01:00:53.380 Cheers, everyone.
01:01:20.820 Thank you.