In this episode of The Western Standard, Cory and Dan discuss the federal government's carbon tax, the Alberta government's attempt to get rid of Alberta's clean energy strategy, and the ongoing Supreme Court challenge to the carbon tax.
00:00:30.000good day welcome to the cory morgan show i am indeed cory morgan this is my hour every week
00:00:38.800with the western standard where i cover some news get some ranting out and talk to interesting
00:00:44.920guests who offer us insight on all sorts of issues and today is no exception is a good show
00:00:50.500i got dan mcteague coming on a little while he's with canadians for affordable energy or you might
00:00:56.480know more for gasbuddy.com. He did a lot of work as, you know, pointing people in the right
00:01:02.460direction to find good prices at the pump for gasoline and a lot of work analyzing fuel prices,
00:01:08.780energy prices, things such as that. And of course, it's a big issue going on right now. As well,
00:01:13.940I put that as the afterthought, he was actually a liberal member of parliament back in the day.
00:01:18.780These were pre-Trudeau days. And if you've seen Mr. McTeague's commentary these days,
00:01:24.320He's not a big fan of the Trudeau Liberals.
00:01:26.840He's of more of the old stock when Liberals were still somewhat sane versus the ideological lunatics we have under Prime Minister Hammerhead.
00:01:36.000So let's get on to speaking of, you know, the actions of Prime Minister Trudeau and some of the things his government has done and some of the stuff that's really been hitting the fan out in the West lately this week.
00:01:47.780So the words, her words were loaded and uncompromised.
00:01:51.560So when the Western Standards, Nigel Hannaford at a press conference the other day asked Premier Daniel Smith what she will do to fend off the proposed federal incursion into Alberta's jurisdiction with electrical generation, she finished her answer basically saying, we will go our own way.
00:02:09.740Now, Smith isn't saying the government's going to pursue an independence referendum in Alberta anytime soon, but she's well aware, too, that her statement left room for people to take that as an unspoken threat.
00:02:20.340Alberta's premier is an experienced and skilled communicator.
00:02:25.740Now, in the near future, Alberta will go its own way with the current plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050, no matter what Ottawa thinks.
00:02:33.300The goalposts, though, are 15 years apart, whereas, you know, Gilboa wants to reach that goal in 2035.
00:02:41.220And there's little indication that Gilboa or Smith are willing to even entertain the notion of changing their targets.
00:16:46.760No, no, no, too many people have missed his voice.
00:16:49.460But as we saw in The Standard, it sounds like, you know, our publisher Derek Fildebrand came up.
00:16:53.860He's had a source within the NDP, and it appears that Rachel Notley could be resigning probably within the next month or two, you know, as we get into the fall session.
00:23:43.920So the federal court rejected a test case of quarantine orders.
00:23:51.640So, you know, there's a lot of things hitting the courts.
00:23:53.660I was talking earlier with how slowly Canada's court system works, and it is with every challenge and with everything that happens within it right now.
00:24:01.360Well, there was a case going forward, you know, basically saying charter rights were breached with a lot of the mask and vaccine mandates, and they certainly were.
00:24:09.960I mean, I don't think many people can look at that and say, no, you know, the rights weren't breached with the travel restrictions and things like that.
00:24:15.700The question is whether it was a justifiable breach.
00:24:19.100But what gets me now is the government saying, well, now, you know, this is all over.
00:24:24.380And this is what the judge herself said.
00:35:56.960Well, put you in the right mood for our chat.
00:35:58.660You know, we still got 10 minutes here.
00:36:01.520So you're with the Canadians for Affordable Energy, and boy, you've got to have a busy, busy time.
00:36:06.700I mean, you're very outspoken on social media, but, you know, energy costs, I mean, inflation in general, and of course, energy costs impact all of it all the way down the line, are pressuring everybody.
00:36:17.880But our government, I guess I'll just kind of start you there, seems to want to do nothing more than make things even more expensive for us.
00:36:24.880More expensive and more confrontational in being expensive.
00:36:27.800They're driven by an ideology, an ideology that basically says energy can be any price.
00:36:32.100doesn't really matter canadians will go along with it as long as you can contrive and connive and
00:36:36.980tell them that the world is coming to an end i mean i i won't get the science of this all but
00:36:41.540the economics clearly indicates there's a big problem in this country you have a government
00:36:45.540that's allowed energy prices to go through the roof two ways uh their green policies on carbon
00:36:50.820taxes which cory you've talked about many many times and the second that's not discussed as much
00:36:55.380is the blocking of pipelines and regulations which is discouraging investments leaving the
00:36:59.860country and with it a drop in the canadian dollar which is only worth 130 135 pennies to buy one us
00:37:05.460dollar corey that adds uh significantly to the price of everything in terms of gasoline in your
00:37:11.860province about 26 cents a liter my province 28 in the maritimes with a 15 hst more like 30.
00:37:19.220these are real factors driving the cost of living through the roof yes and as you can talk about
00:37:25.140monetary policy and the government overspending and printing too much money and all these other
00:37:30.500things but we keep tap dancing around what is in my view the elephant in the room even the
00:37:35.700bank of canada has to recognize now finally after two terms of saying gasoline is in fact driving
00:37:42.180inflation up and down when it's down of course the liberals take credit for it when it's up they're
00:37:46.980conspicuously silent as we saw today or i should say yesterday uh when announcement came that in
00:37:53.380Reality is this is a country blessed with an abundance of energy, and we are despoiling and ruining it for generations and undermining not just affordability, but I think the benefit and the gift that's been given to every Canadian of energy resources the world desperately wants, but which we have a few ideologues in Ottawa preventing it from happening.
00:38:10.980Yeah, I mean, we are an energy powerhouse, or we should be.
00:38:14.800I mean, the natural resources we're blessed with, whether it is the hydro in the east
00:38:18.400or the natural gas and oil we have in the west, but we have an ideologically driven
00:38:23.060federal government that doesn't want us to export it even.
00:38:25.760I mean, not even talking about our domestic, you know, use of this, because it's kind
00:38:29.600of ridiculous that we have so many energy resources.
00:38:31.780We pay such a high domestic price, but we have a prime minister telling us there's no
00:38:35.920business case to export it to other countries.
00:38:38.420And then lying, as his minister of environment has done on many occasions, saying, you know,
00:38:42.920these are industries that are making tons of profit let them let them pay their fair share
00:38:47.240rather than passing it on to consumers you know i'm not surprised maybe he's dangled in a few too
00:38:51.960many uh buildings and bridges and whatnot but the reality is for most of us who have spent a bit of
00:38:57.080time in politics some of us in the real private sector in the real world and those of us trying
00:39:01.160to struggle to make ends meet uh you know i don't come from a family of great wealth my parents both
00:39:06.280lost their shirts back in the 1980s when the last trudeau government spent so heavily that we wound
00:39:11.160up with 23 24 interest rates i think the country is going down that road again and when you have
00:39:16.840leaders in this country who are determined not just to impose something they know cannot work
00:39:21.640germany has proven that uh renewables do not work uh you know france is having trouble having to
00:39:26.760right you know look back at coal the uk is completely in in a in a mess it wants to now
00:39:33.240get back into permitting leases to get natural gas canada has all of these advantages and yet
00:39:38.760we have a group of people in ottawa elites committed to shutting down the country's resources1.00
00:39:45.320and as a result and as a consequence shutting down our economy it's only a matter of time before
00:39:49.720another bond rating agency comes in downgrades our credit if you think you know uh six or seven
00:39:55.240percent interest rates are tough to handle wait till that happens you have to pay 10 or 11. then
00:39:59.880i think things will get very real and those here my neck in the woods in toronto who live in you
00:40:04.680you know, fantasy world believe their food is delivered by stork or by, you know, by pixie dust
00:40:09.480will now have to get more real about the direction taken. It's a very deliberate policy by this
00:40:14.460government to undermine the Canadian economy by throwing out everything that's good in favor of
00:40:18.560things they know did not work. So, I mean, I believe citizens are catching on. I mean,
00:40:22.560we see it in our pocketbooks. We see what's happening. And as you've said, European nations
00:40:27.520have certainly had to figure it out recently. I'll ask the hardest question, though. What can we do?
00:40:33.760I mean, we know what the government should do.
00:40:35.520How do we change this government from its ideological course, though?
00:43:38.820I think when it gets to 40 and 45 percent for the pure Pallief conservatives, I think0.93
00:43:43.740we may very well see Mr. Trudeau take a long walk off a surfboard in Tofino somewhere.
00:43:49.840Yeah, I was speculating earlier that that might come pretty soon.
00:43:52.640But I mean, you know, when you look at the pool that this Liberal Party, I said it when I introduced before at the start of the show when you were coming on.
00:43:59.400I said, you know, you're a member from back in the days when Liberals were pragmatic and sane.
00:44:03.840Now it's a party dominated by ideologues.
00:44:06.580I don't know where or who they might draw for a leadership that might turn things around.
00:44:19.780And I think at this point, it's trying to protect the 70 or 90 or 100 members you think you can keep by having a transition at the leadership level.
00:44:28.640But if you're going to keep on the same dangerous path to economic perdition, good luck with that.
00:44:34.520You might be reduced to a rump, the same which I saw in 2011.
00:44:38.580There's significant consequences and blowback coming.
00:44:42.620Every time there's an interest rate increase, more and more people's noses go on the proverbial waterline.
00:44:47.720Food prices are endemically inflationary, driven by energy prices to a large extent, which this federal government seems to be committed insanely at trying to raise.
00:44:57.200We should be pulling back, removing those carbon taxes, hitting net zero hard and saying if we can achieve it scientifically, fine.
00:45:05.020If not, scrap it, because it's an idea that is extraordinarily pernicious to Canada and is likely to lead not just to economic dislocation,
00:45:13.080but potentially to a constitutional crisis on a scale I haven't seen in my lifetime.
00:45:17.200and I've been around a few of them. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. I mean,
00:45:21.600we can keep pointing it out at least and letting people know and at least moving towards a better
00:45:28.400future, hopefully with things. And that's what you've been doing out there. So before I let you
00:45:32.400go, where can people find you with the Canadians for Affordable Energy and then Gas Price Buddy
00:45:37.440and such? Yeah, sure. AffordableEnergy.ca is a site I often put my blogs up on. If you want
00:45:44.000gas price predictions gaswizard.ca is probably the easiest one and if you need to get a hold of
00:45:49.520me on twitter gas price wizard i'm usually there uh usually having a little bit of fun with everybody
00:45:54.160yes so likewise twitter is kind of my favorite playground too but there's some serious business
00:45:57.840goes on there as well so i appreciate you rushing in to come to talk to us today and this stuff you
00:46:02.800do dan i mean as i said you know it sure it could be a long wait but i mean we can mitigate the
00:46:07.680damage by continually exposing this and pushing while we can and uh well just hope for the best
00:46:13.040Back at you, Corey. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate this.
00:46:15.560All right. Thanks, Dan. Yes, that was Dan McTeague. As I said, one of the last of a generation of liberals who used to be sane. And there's still a few hiding out there and everything. But things change, you know. And hey, you know, if the conservatives are in too long and do the wrong things, it's time to turn around on them and look at something different too. But they're just so ideologically driven now. I'm glad Dan got in for the tail end of the program there, though. It's always good to talk to him. As I said, check him out online. He's very outspoken.
00:46:42.680and a good voice to listen to on energy issues.
00:46:45.180Because hey, energy prices hit you everywhere.
00:46:48.320All right, that's all the time we've got today, guys.