CMS： Canada’s system of racial apartheid needs to end
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
190.01204
Summary
In this episode of the Cory Morgan Show, I rant about how Canada's Indigenous population is falling further behind the rest of the country's in terms of life expectancy, and why it's time to wake up to the fact that this is a problem.
Transcript
00:00:30.000
Good day! Welcome to The Cory Morgan Show. This is my weekly platform to rant, rave, read out some
00:00:36.480
new stories, and check in with thought leaders and opinion creators from across the country.
00:00:43.420
As you probably might notice, I'm dressed a little differently than usual. It's Stampede Week in
00:00:49.140
Calgary. Viewers outside of Calgary might not know this, but most probably do. This is when we
00:00:55.160
take advantage of this event to be able to cosplay for a week and pretend to be cowboys for a week
00:01:00.680
and it gets me out of having to wear the the old outfits and everything nico's made a great stampede
00:01:05.880
background there and it's been going really well in calgary this year really good stampede a lot
00:01:10.240
of people out having a good time and yeah i know we were on the cowboy network rfd tv other spots
00:01:16.380
and you guys come on it's the nerve of this guy trying to dress up like that is this caricature
00:01:21.280
of a cow whale come on let us have our fun hey i am an alberta boy and i've i've been near cows
00:01:26.220
before so it's as close as it gets okay i got a good show today as always i think but uh we've
00:01:31.800
got a former crtc chair and newspaper executive peter menzies on we're going to talk some more
00:01:36.620
about bill c18 and just the state of canadian media and the mess that the federal government's
00:01:41.880
making with it and of course uh there'll be the check-in with mr naylor and lots of other things
00:01:47.680
coming along, but I'm going to start out with what's got me wound up today. And I saw, you know,
00:01:52.320
some numbers that came out recently from Alberta Health Services, and the numbers are shocking.
00:01:57.480
So the life expectancy for an Indigenous man in Alberta is now plummeted down to 60 years of age,
00:02:04.040
and for Indigenous women, it's down to 66. So if you want to see the comparison of what that means,
00:02:08.680
the national life expectancy for a non-Indigenous man in Canada is 80, and women 84. And the story
00:02:14.940
across the country isn't any different with indigenous populations. It's just a matter of
0.92
00:02:19.140
give and take a couple of years. And this issue hasn't garnered the headlines it should have
00:02:23.420
because it forces people to face a reality they'd rather avoid. Canada's system and policies with
00:02:29.300
indigenous people, it's a complete catastrophe. And how bad does it have to get before people
1.00
00:02:36.200
admit this? Think about that. Indigenous Canadians can expect to die 20 years before everybody else
1.00
00:02:42.440
and that number is getting worse. The population should be screaming for systematic reform from
00:02:47.800
the rooftops in light of this kind of number, but the silence is deafening. Now, the opioid
00:02:53.380
addiction epidemic is responsible for how fast it suddenly increased. It increased by a seven-year
00:02:58.520
drop in life expectancy in the last few years. But again, those expectancies were already low
00:03:04.800
and they were already dropping. And again, it's indicative of some big, serious problems.
00:03:09.380
Indigenous people have always had lower life expectancy than the rest of Canadians. We
00:03:14.060
shouldn't accept this. They're dying younger than other citizens, though, because of an assortment
00:03:18.160
of causes, ranging from diabetes to prostate cancer to murder. In fact, with every single
00:03:24.220
aspect, when you measure the standard of living, Canada's Indigenous people fall short. Whether
00:03:29.660
it's income, health, addictions, crime, education levels, mental health issues, housing, domestic
00:03:35.080
stability, they're lagging by every measure. And it isn't getting better. But what do people expect?
00:03:42.300
How can somebody look at Canada's system of racial apartheid, and that's exactly what it is,
00:03:46.680
and not see a socioeconomic disaster in the making? How could a person think that keeping
00:03:52.340
a race of people separated from the rest of society on what are usually isolated reserves
00:03:56.840
with little to no local means of generating income, and think these people are going to
00:04:01.320
fare well under these conditions. Does anybody really believe there's a sustainable future for
00:04:06.560
people living on these enclaves of dependency and misery? I mean, what do they envision? Do they
00:04:12.360
think citizens and residents on reserves will suddenly find and develop local resources and
00:04:16.100
begin to live functional lives independent from government management and dependency?
00:04:21.220
Some people really believe those things might happen. But all that tells me is they've never
00:04:24.840
actually spent time on a reserve in Canada. I'm not talking about somebody who's gone and attended
00:04:30.420
the odd powwow or done a corporate retreat that had a sweat lodge attached to a resort in a
00:04:35.160
native reserve somewhere. I'm talking about getting off the main road and seeing how our
00:04:39.840
First Nations populations are really living on those reserves. Have a look at the dilapidated
1.00
00:04:44.600
houses, the wild dogs, the crime, the trash strewn about. And it's common, guys, that's the
00:04:49.900
reality on most of Canada's reserves, and it's not improving. For most Indigenous people on
00:04:55.800
reserves to make a living, they have to leave the reserve. Unfortunately, many of those residents
00:05:00.240
from the reserves are ill-equipped to adapt to town or city living, and then they fall off the
00:05:04.620
rails when they've gotten off the reserve. It's terrible. A lifetime of economic dependency in a
00:05:09.460
tight and often dysfunctional social environment handicaps Indigenous people when they try to
00:05:14.000
break free, and we've got to face that reality. The reserve system is an inhumane policy failure,
00:05:19.380
and it has to come to an end, and I know that won't happen overnight. It can't. It's going to
00:05:24.680
take decades of policies modeled to transition people away from the reserve system and into
00:05:29.460
society in general. People will need compensation, training, and adjustment for it. Individual
00:05:34.740
property rights need to be applied for people on reserves to break them out of the collectivism
00:05:38.960
that's destroying them today. And of course, there'll be legal challenges too. Many people
00:05:43.560
have misconceptions about what treaty obligations the country actually has to Indigenous people.
00:05:48.040
Now, most of those obligations, if you read a treaty, they just have to do with things like
00:05:51.860
providing education, determining some land boundaries, and some minor payments. We could
00:05:56.200
apply private property rights and come up with some final settlements and still abide by treaties.
00:06:02.440
Most of the policies applied to Indigenous people right now come from the outdated and terribly
1.00
00:06:06.140
racist Indian Act. That gross piece of legislation needs to be repealed. And as a society, we need to
00:06:12.300
move away from all race-based policies. It fails the people every time. There's a giant parasite
00:06:18.780
class living on the backs of Canada's Indigenous population. There's bureaucrats, civil servants,
00:06:23.860
and many lawyers, they find the status quo very lucrative, and they'll defend it vigorously.
00:06:28.740
People calling for changes to the system will always be called racist, among other things,
00:06:33.000
by those other parasites invested in the current bloated and corrupted system.
00:06:37.340
Nobody's calling out a race. What needs to be called out, though, is a system failing an entire
00:06:41.840
race. Nobody's calling for assimilation, either. Cultures can be preserved without being locked in
00:06:47.100
an isolated reserve away from the rest of society. And spending more money alone, it won't solve the
00:06:52.900
issue. Federal spending, just federal, on Indigenous programs in 2021 was $24.5 billion.
00:07:00.040
That's above and beyond every other dollar spent, as is spent on Canadian citizens in general.
00:07:04.700
And that doesn't include the spending from provincial and municipal governments on top of
00:07:08.580
that. And what are the results? It's not the spending I'm begrudging. It was actually making
00:07:13.600
the lives of Indigenous Canadians better. I would accept it. It's the lack of results. It's failing.
1.00
00:07:18.700
I mean, again, they're dying 20 years younger than the rest of us.
00:07:22.420
We could triple spending on Indigenous programs tomorrow
00:07:27.560
Unless the system's replaced, we're just tossing money into a black hole.
00:07:32.820
Racial policies and segregation needs to be phased out.
00:07:36.100
And the best thing that could happen for Indigenous Canadians
0.99
00:07:42.000
If one really did actually hate Indigenous people,
00:07:43.980
I can think of a few things more terrible that can be done
00:07:48.820
We can't repair damage caused through race-based policy
00:07:51.960
through applying even more race-based policies.
00:07:55.480
Anyway, guys, it's time to start talking about it, frankly, okay?
00:07:59.600
I mean, how can we look at those numbers and say,
00:08:05.180
If you really do care for Canada's Indigenous people,
1.00
00:08:07.560
it's time for some courageous, frank discussion
00:08:09.760
on changing the entire system, and significantly.
00:08:13.060
And it's awful to watch it keep carrying on as it has been.
00:08:15.280
All right, that's what's got me wound up today.
00:08:18.120
Well, let's see what else there is to get wound up with
00:08:20.180
and check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor.
00:08:22.320
Lots is going on out there, and there's some good news,
00:08:33.100
but it gets me out of wearing a tie for when we tape the pipeline.
00:08:36.440
No, that's a great-looking shirt, I must admit.
00:08:38.680
You've been able to get down to the grounds yet?
00:08:42.060
I'm not sure if I'm going to make it this year.
00:08:49.060
I mean, we've seen pictures popping up of Jane's artwork throughout the stampede.
00:08:52.740
Of course, it's been placed in a lot of great visible spots throughout in there.
00:09:00.480
As you know, Corey, because you were there, we had our staff stampede party last night.
00:09:05.700
We went to Auto Screw Bills for the annual Testicle Festival.
00:09:11.260
Now, the background to this is we hired last year a young, wet-behind-the-ears reporter called Jonathan from Ontario.
00:09:19.340
So he arrived with his one suitcase and quickly made Calgary home.
00:09:23.340
But he really couldn't be in an official Albertan quarry until he'd tried the prairie oysters, you know, the testicles.
00:09:32.900
So, of course, we took him down there, and we had some interoffice betting on how many he could swallow.
00:09:40.580
and holy cow he started popping them and if the little bugger didn't eat 12 balls
1.00
00:09:46.940
happier and when he's got a mouth full of balls i know uh the staff checked and uh they had no
0.77
00:09:54.260
record of anybody eating that amount of balls before so uh jonathan bradley is the official
00:10:01.560
king of the balls and you can uh read all about it on the website now and uh excellent video put
00:10:08.960
together of uh the ordeal by uh by nico so so that's a lot of fun uh that that story other
00:10:15.920
stuff that's not so fun uh edmonton's had a horrible plague of violent crimes the last uh 48
00:10:22.560
hours and including some for some poor 87 year old guy who's apparently an avid photographer
00:10:28.720
was taking pictures downtown and he was just suddenly attacked and and beaten and severely
00:10:35.040
injured. Fortunately, there were a couple of peace officers nearby and they were able to
00:10:40.560
drag the attacker off him. They've had murders and other stuff. Really been a bad start to July for
00:10:49.380
the provincial capital. The Bank of Canada added again this morning, Corey, raising
00:10:55.220
the interest rate another quarter percent. It's now sitting at five percent, which is the highest
00:11:01.500
rate in 22 years. So those with variable mortgages aren't happy campers at all today.
00:11:09.880
Federal government has told Canadian airlines they need to give better service,
00:11:14.400
better information to travelers, and basically they've run out of excuses, no more excuses for
00:11:20.440
what happens. And I say good luck with that because we know that's not going to happen.
00:11:25.700
And the ongoing B.C. port strike costing the Canadian economy half a billion dollars a day.
00:11:34.100
It's now going into its second week, and Labour organizers are telling the Prime Minister he better not get involved.
00:11:42.640
So while all the other premiers have got together basically and said, you know, get Parliament back and order them back to work,
00:11:49.520
the Labour types don't want anything to do with that.
0.77
00:11:52.720
So those are the highlights up at the moment, Corey.
00:11:58.920
and I guess we'll see you on the pipeline tonight.
00:12:04.900
We'll report on what's been changing and happening as it goes.
00:12:12.640
I just want to like to remind everybody the reason we've got all those stories,
00:12:15.520
we've got those reporters, whether it's Jonathan and his skill with the bull testicles
00:12:21.760
or Arthur Green reporting on, yeah, the crazy crime rate in Edmonton is because you guys have
00:12:27.180
been subscribing. So please, please, if you haven't already, get on there. Westernstandard.news
00:12:32.880
slash membership. I'm not begging. I'm asking you for to pay for a service we provide. This is how
00:12:37.400
we can stay independent. This is how we can keep things going as a media outlet. And we've been
00:12:42.360
doing well and you guys have been doing great. We really appreciate it. If you've subscribed already,
00:12:46.640
thank you very much. And if you haven't subscribed yet, come on, $9.99 a month,
00:12:50.480
100 bucks a year you get past that paywall get in there and uh just keeps things rolling like
00:12:56.920
this show and our reporters going all over yeah that has been i'll just you know sidetrack a
00:13:02.000
little bit before we get to our guest we're going to talk some media stuff here in a few minutes
00:13:05.300
here uh arthur green yeah he's he's the uh friend of our copy editors in a big way here at the
00:13:10.400
western standard very prolific writer but one of the things he's been covering a lot of in edmonton
00:13:14.100
has been the crime that's up there i mean we're seeing it in every city and uh there just seems
00:13:19.920
to be a wave hitting up there right now. And at the same time, rather than dealing with these
00:13:26.180
things, though, rather than admitting what's going on, these progressive city councils, we have it in
00:13:31.020
Calgary as well, just they're in this world of denial. So Ebbington set this goal. There's
00:13:36.860
nothing progressives love more than setting goals that they, I'm sure they must know they won't
00:13:40.480
achieve. And they're saying, oh, Edmonton's going to be one of the lowest crime cities in Canada by
00:13:44.480
2030. Well, since they put that announcement out, I think there's been a couple of fatal stabbings.
00:13:50.260
There's that horrible crime against that elderly gentleman we saw the other day. The streets are
00:13:54.160
going wild. I mean, it's a complicated issue. It's tied in with a lot of addiction challenges
00:13:59.020
and all sorts of other things. But to sit and deny it as it is in Calgary, for example, I mean,
00:14:06.380
it's been focused and we see that in a lot of cities. It ties to the addiction. It ties to the
00:14:10.280
dealers fighting with each other as they work to serve the addicts, but it comes around the
00:14:15.560
transit systems and on the trains, and it was getting increasingly violent. One of the things
00:14:19.840
that happened in Calgary is, well, Premier Smith, people could call it a campaign stunt or whatever,
00:14:24.780
but she dedicated 12 sheriffs to each city to run on the transit areas and the high crime areas and
00:14:30.940
have a presence that's there. Well, Calgary got rid of them. They got rid of them since they said,
00:14:36.320
no, we're doing okay, we don't need them. I mean, the point is, it's political pride. And it also
00:14:40.460
clashes with their ideology. You hear from all the time, police don't prevent crimes. Yet at the
00:14:44.720
same time, whenever Mayor Gondek goes out to do a photo op at a transit area, she's surrounded by
00:14:50.840
12 police officers. So they seem to prevent the crimes from happening to her. I mean, that's the
00:14:54.780
point. They do make people safe, at least when they're present. So we need their presence at
00:14:59.900
these stations. It doesn't solve the problems. I understand that it pushes into different area,
00:15:03.620
but at least people can safely commute, but they don't want to face those realities. They don't
00:15:07.760
want to deal with that. So they just set fluffy goals, continue with enablement policies, and the
00:15:11.540
crime rates still go through the roof. I mean, we're, as you can see in the stampede in Calgary,
00:15:16.040
it's going to be KDs in Edmonton next week, and let's hope they get some mayhem cleaned up so
00:15:20.680
people can have fun, at least for that week. All right, let's move along. I've been looking forward
00:15:25.720
to this. It's been a while. We've had him on the show before, but it's been quite a while.
00:15:30.520
He's a former chair of the CRTC, a newspaper executive, very, very experienced, skilled
00:15:36.800
And he's been very outspoken and critical, as a lot of us have, on Bill C-18.
00:15:42.980
So thank you very much for joining the show today, Peter.
00:15:48.060
So, I mean, most of my listeners are pretty aware due to many repeated rants out of me
00:15:53.240
But perhaps if you could run down in a nutshell what that bill is about and where it's been.
00:15:57.660
Yeah, it's an effort to redistribute advertising income earned by social media and search platforms and search engines to newspapers and other news organizations, qualified ones that have been making the case.
00:16:15.500
I've been making the case, shouting very loudly that Facebook et al have been stealing their content.
00:16:24.900
I'm not quite sure why they get away with it because they never support it with anything other than just a statement.
00:16:30.500
So the non-journalistic or the less journalistic point of view is that it's kind of a shakedown.
00:16:39.160
But, I mean, I guess maybe we'll talk a little more, though.
00:16:42.120
I mean, into the, I would consider it as a libertarian, more of a devil's advocate point
00:16:47.000
of view. But I mean, you've seen the decline of revenue and ability in the media industry. You
00:16:51.640
know, I mean, it's been dramatic this last 10 years. And it's a, people will call it a problem
00:16:55.380
that needs to be solved, whether or not the government should intervene to do so or not.
00:16:59.300
But we, our news is at risk. So I mean, C18 isn't the solution, but what should we be doing?
00:17:05.540
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a couple arguments there. News is certainly at risk,
00:17:09.720
because it's a it's a time of disruption right but times of disruption tend to sort the men from the
00:17:14.760
boys in these in these kinds of things so the companies that are well equipped intellectually
00:17:19.400
and willing to invest in their product tend to find their ways through these things companies
00:17:25.640
that aren't um tend to struggle more um i mean it's going to be a struggle for everybody but some
00:17:31.800
make it and some don't that's what happens that's in when things evolve right when the
00:17:36.600
when the business models evolve in terms of that there have been a number of newspapers
00:17:40.600
the wall street journal that the new york times is actually starting to do quite well
00:17:45.080
daily telegraph in london the times uh the guardian made money last year in london and
00:17:50.600
you know after years of not making it and going with you know voluntary subscriptions and
00:17:55.160
voluntary donations others have gone behind a paywall you guys are using are using a paywall
00:18:01.160
um you know the guys who are going back to that and are providing content that is pleasing to
00:18:07.160
their readers are getting through it others are not and uh so you know and yet at the same time
00:18:15.960
we've been through the internet we have access probably to more news than we've ever had before
00:18:21.160
yeah and i guess that there's what the the one of the bigger risks with the government getting in
00:18:26.040
this way, particularly with C18, is it'll stunt the evolution of outlets. I mean, it doesn't give
00:18:31.580
them that incentive then to change or be innovative or try new models. And it also strangles the
00:18:36.980
little ones like us or the ones that may not qualify as the government's going to pick and
00:18:41.200
choose who is a qualified outlet and who isn't. Well, it's actually got worse than that. I hate
00:18:46.500
to break it to you, but this week it appeared like the government was sort of backing down
00:18:51.840
and it is because i think i think meta facebook and instagram um unless something dramatic changes
00:19:00.000
they're gone for good they're out of the business in canada everywhere uh they are not news
00:19:05.480
providers they are content providers and news is a small percentage and as they've been saying
00:19:11.080
recently it's just not worth the grief um there's just not it's three percent of their content and
00:19:16.700
that and those users are replicable they'll still be there for other reasons in other words
00:19:21.080
yeah but what they've done is they've changed from a per links which was really problem sort
00:19:28.120
of way of charging people charging the the social media the web giants to sort of putting a cap on
00:19:34.460
it making a calculation and then the big thing problem for guys like you is that they're really
00:19:40.440
restricting the number of people to whom they may have to distribute money so i still think it's a
00:19:46.440
long shot that any money gets distributed through this but if it does here's who it's going to
00:19:51.960
Videotron Bell the CBC probably the biggest probably the biggest bunch Rogers you know
00:19:59.920
maybe Black Press might be the biggest one that gets out of there but innovators startups
00:20:06.760
entrepreneurs like Western Standard Black Locks Halifax Examiner you know Narwhal they're on the
00:20:14.180
left they're on the right they're screwed they'll be left they'll be left out they will not be
0.84
00:20:19.080
subsidized the the status quo right which includes most of the people who are struggling and a lot
00:20:27.100
of people who have tons of money anyway like bells and bell and rogers will get the loot and uh you
00:20:33.900
guys will not we'll have to find other ways we're pretty stubborn i don't know if they'll get rid
00:20:40.860
us that easily that's where you need you know like you gave a little pitch there that's where
00:20:44.220
you need your readers your readers support you know like if if and that's really the thing that
00:20:49.560
people are going to have to get their heads around if they want the sort of content they're looking
00:20:53.460
for if they want local product if they want right now you have the only uh online newsroom in in uh
00:21:01.440
in in alberta i think other than the cbc um in terms in terms of doing that there's no calvary
00:21:08.160
Herald, no Calgary Sun, no Edmonton Journal, no Edmonton Sun newsroom that I'm aware of.
00:21:12.740
If people want that, it's 10 bucks a month. It's like, it's a beer, right? If they're not willing
00:21:21.240
to put that forward, they'll lose. I try to remind people, at least those of us of a vintage
00:21:26.260
remember, we never thought twice of spending that much or more to have the paper boy bring that to
00:21:30.800
us, to our household every day. And that was decades ago. And for that sort of price, you can
00:21:36.500
the same thing and i'm hoping canadian consumers learn to adapt that way they realize it's a
00:21:40.420
product to pay for and a lot of our subscribers have so far it just just takes some time yeah
00:21:45.540
and you know you don't need to get everybody you just need to get enough right i mean that's that's
00:21:49.620
basically the the way that needs to go and i mean the globe and mail has you know really
00:21:56.100
shuttered down with the with the paywall and that sort of stuff and all the other papers i mentioned
00:22:00.900
have done that but you got to have the quality you got to have the value proposition right so
00:22:05.620
you know you guys are doing a good job on that and others are too but you know some i mean it's very
00:22:11.140
difficult you know i don't like calling names out but it's very difficult for a post media product
00:22:17.060
these days to make a value proposition half of it is not you know half of your local paper is the
00:22:23.940
national post um so why would you buy your local paper when really i mean school board doesn't get
00:22:30.180
covered city council get covered courts yeah now and then right so what's what's the point
00:22:37.780
no it's difficult so i mean do you think maybe though i mean the government backed down a little
00:22:42.500
bit and as you sort of point out the government really doesn't have the leverage they pretend to
00:22:46.980
have or think they have with the social media giants i mean it was three percent of the content
00:22:51.300
they provided i can't see facebook and google back and down people keep saying well that happened in
00:22:55.940
australia but i think that just says all the more they're not letting that precedent get set because
00:22:59.780
every country with a greedy government is going to come in and try and snatch some from them in
00:23:04.060
the future. So, I mean, do you think the government will swallow some pride maybe and just get this
00:23:09.840
bill or are they just going to keep on this standoff and no news gets provided on those
00:23:13.860
giants at all? Sure. Well, first of all, the narrative that Google and Facebook backed down
00:23:18.620
is one spun by Rupert Murdoch's media in Australia. It was actually the government that backed down
00:23:23.020
and made some amendments and said, basically, you're free to make your own deals. And then
00:23:28.640
we've, you know, nobody's actually ever used the Australian legislation. So to that extent,
00:23:33.960
you know, the Australian model is the government threatening to do something unless everybody else
00:23:38.060
does something. I think the government's in this situation right now where I think it's too late
00:23:43.000
for Meta, for Facebook. I think they insulted them too much. I mean, people don't make emotional
00:23:50.020
decisions, they make business decisions, but they also found that they were probably going to be
00:23:54.580
insulted whether they made a philanthropic decision and said okay we'll help anyway because
00:23:59.000
let's face it none of them set out to kill newspapers or to kill news products right in
00:24:03.580
terms of that so what they're trying to do now is salvage some sort of deal with google which will
00:24:10.560
put a cap on it um and right now my understanding is there's a huge difference between what news
00:24:19.440
Media Canada and some of the other lobby groups lobbying for the loot are expecting and what
00:24:26.860
Google's willing to pay. So, you know, the best case scenario, this ends up with them making some
00:24:32.400
kind of deal with Google who then get exempted from the act. And then they maybe never even
00:24:37.200
bother bringing the act into force, which allows Facebook meta to still carry news, which they
00:24:42.560
might decide to get it, but it might be too late for that. They might decide to get out of the
00:24:46.080
business anyway. Or as it stands, they don't get any deal with Google. And as it stands,
00:24:54.660
they're not going to get one, near as I can tell. And we play this drama out through the fall.
00:25:01.420
And then we'll see what probably the best case scenario for everybody is that the government
00:25:07.780
amends Bill C-18 so that the coming into force date just gets extended into eternity.
00:25:16.080
and you just kind of nobody they don't withdraw the act it sits there but no harm is done yeah
00:25:23.600
you just kind of let it die quietly of old age uh i mean something that's got to be frustrating and
00:25:29.760
and it's been a i wrote on it recently a difficult environment for established journalists they put
00:25:35.520
in their time and everything and then you know they're they're it just isn't the demand for
00:25:39.760
for their product as as there used to be but i mean i i see it as almost some of the outlets are
00:25:45.840
really jumping on the government bandwagon i think uh post media said they're going to stop
00:25:50.480
advertising on facebook and the shots go back and forth but it feels i i it's just sad to see such
00:25:57.420
large institutions coming getting down to that rather than seeking uh changes in their ways to
00:26:02.660
try and get out of the the soup they're in yeah it is it is it's it's it's really it's it's it's
00:26:08.840
kind of embarrassing isn't it right like i mean it's it's kind of nationally embarrassing to see
00:26:12.860
that we're going through this with our with our media i mean we used to be pretty proud proud of
00:26:18.060
our media and that sort of stuff and a lot of it just isn't very good anymore um and nobody
00:26:25.260
i can't believe i just said that out loud but people need to say that out loud a little bit
00:26:29.180
from time to time right like you you actually have to have like i was saying a product that
00:26:35.100
that people want to buy and here's one of the tough things for the journalists like
00:26:38.860
hey look they got kids they got mortgages they got they've got you know livelihoods they've got
00:26:44.220
elderly parents to care for they've got all those things that everybody else does so it's not like
0.93
00:26:49.340
you know we we shouldn't empathize with their with their predicament and i can understand their
00:26:53.660
despair and their desperation in in terms of that but news there hasn't ever been a great deal of
00:27:00.780
money in news the fact of the matter is those big old newspapers like the one i used to run
00:27:05.740
it wasn't just the news that people bought it for right it's like those were the days when if you
00:27:11.500
wanted to rent an apartment you had to buy the paper if you wanted if you wanted to you know
00:27:16.700
sell your car you had to put an ad in the paper and if you wanted to buy a car you had to buy the
00:27:21.340
paper if you wanted to do virtually anything if you want to find out who had a kid the births
00:27:26.320
deaths whose daughter got engaged who got married um whose grandma died you had to buy the newspaper
00:27:31.940
if you wanted to see the comics the horoscope that sort of stuff i mean i got back in the day
00:27:37.300
when catherine ford and peter stockland were both writing on the calgary herald editorial pages
00:27:42.020
and everybody thought this was great controversy and it was and it was fun and that and you know
00:27:45.860
be like what are they going to say next and that sort of stuff the fact of the matter is though
00:27:50.900
i got more phone calls when the canadian tire flyer wasn't delivered to somebody's door on
00:27:55.380
a thursday morning than over anything peter stockland or catherine ford ever said well
00:28:00.580
yeah i mean it's it's the world has changed so dramatically i mean it's good to remind everybody
00:28:04.580
it was just such an it was a need it was an integral pipeline to to information that you
00:28:09.940
you couldn't go without it but those yeah the internet products that really killed newspapers
00:28:15.940
it's not so much facebook i mean facebook didn't start making money until 2012 right um and it was
00:28:22.420
over for newspapers by then because it was kajiji and craigslist and did it right classified
00:28:27.700
advertising was worth 30 in some cases 40 percent of most north american newspapers revenue and
00:28:34.260
these guys gave that stuff away for free right and how do you compete with that all of a sudden
00:28:40.420
something you're you know like a product like the globe and mail if you wanted to rent an apartment
00:28:45.060
it cost you 80 bucks to put a classified ad in right all of us and they're i mean these were
00:28:50.260
very high rates 25 cents a word i think the herald was and that sort of stuff all of a sudden
00:28:54.500
somebody's given that away for free. So if they're chasing anybody for loot, it should be Kijiji and
0.99
00:28:59.620
Craigslist. Yeah, which, well, I don't want to give them ideas. But I mean, it is tragic. But I
00:29:07.380
mean, obviously, it's just not going to change anymore. I mean, now that I can pick up my phone
00:29:11.540
and search out a used car or an apartment or a job, it's just not coming back. This is a change
00:29:18.580
in history uh what do you think the approach is i mean you think the government can quietly let
00:29:25.020
this go to the wayside would it almost be better to for the rest of us to quiet down and let them
00:29:29.640
sort of pad this thing away well i actually i actually think and uh you know this is where
00:29:35.880
they should have been years ago but i mean we are where we are so no point monday morning
00:29:39.400
quarterbacking it but uh my former crtc chair conrad von finkenstein and i just recently did
00:29:45.100
a paper for the McDonnell-Vorier Institute, the purpose of which was just trying to say what we
00:29:49.840
need is a national news industry policy of some kind, right? It involved, like our suggestion was
00:29:55.540
that when people subscribe, that subscription becomes 100% tax deductible. Now, the Globe and
00:30:02.060
Mail picked up on that idea in an editorial the other day, and they suggested 70%. Well, fine,
00:30:07.780
but I mean, what we're trying to do is get a conversation started going. But obviously,
00:30:11.780
the current 15 that's not going to there's no incentive in that getting a 15 tax break on your
00:30:17.940
120 a year to the you know i mean who's going to even bother claiming that in their in their in
00:30:23.700
their tax form but make it 70 make it 100 it's different you know a different type of funding
00:30:29.060
mechanism from the from the web giants um all kinds of different things so reforming the role
00:30:34.340
of the cvc getting them out of the advertising business that sort of stuff that's the sort of
00:30:40.020
that's what we need to do that's a long-winded way of saying what we need to be doing is not
00:30:45.700
subsidizing zombie products from the past that are basically staggering around
00:30:51.940
dead right and trying to find out ways to keep them staggering around dead that's like a subsidy
00:30:57.460
for products that are in palliative care what you need to be do be doing is understanding what's
00:31:03.140
going on, the nature of the tech revolution that's happening, which is huge, and build
00:31:13.840
We have this federal government that fancies itself as so progressive, and when it comes
00:31:18.760
to economic matters like this through Bill C-11 and C-18, they are paleocons.
00:31:25.260
They're trying to preserve the world of 1985 and everything they do.
00:31:30.220
No, it's not coming back, but I guess we can keep speaking up and keep pushing and keep trying to prosper outside of that.
00:31:36.820
I really appreciate you coming on to lay out what the issue was.
00:31:39.840
I mean, I don't want to date you too much, but you've had experience through a great number of years of journalism, and it's worth applying that.
00:31:46.220
I mean, seeing the evolution and seeing where it's gone to.
00:31:49.420
So as you mentioned, you put content in, you take part with the McDonnell-Laurier Institute.
00:31:56.280
um well um i i write for a number of different publications i write for epic times pretty
00:32:03.280
regularly the line uh the hub is uh the last piece i wrote for the hub got got a lot got a
00:32:09.040
lot of carriage in terms of that i occasionally we write for the globe and mail and now and then
00:32:13.980
western standard too um can can pick up my stuff so uh watch for it if people were to follow the
00:32:21.040
The easiest thing is to follow the Macdonald Laurier Institute site or social media feeds
00:32:27.680
because they pick up just about everything we do and republish it under their brand.
00:32:33.240
So that's probably the easiest way for folks to do it.
00:32:37.580
That's another interesting stuff there too, by the way.
00:32:39.520
Yeah, I was about to say, I've had a number of guests, you know,
00:32:41.660
we've been a part of the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
00:32:45.580
People should go there, as you said, just to look in general.
00:32:47.660
there's there's a you could you could lose some hours digging into the content there it's fantastic
00:32:53.820
great well i thank you again for your time and uh sharing with us today uh peter and uh well
00:32:58.700
hopefully the next time we talk it'll be a little less bleak outlook yeah yeah well like you know
00:33:03.500
like i said like keep your chin up i mean this is a disruptive time it's a tough time
00:33:07.660
people will need new ideas some will work and some won't but uh just keep going forward and
00:33:13.580
and the smart and the able will survive. We will. We're also this stubborn.
00:33:21.900
Thanks, Corey. That was Peter Menzies. And yes, it's just a resume too long to list when it comes
00:33:27.260
to the media world. And it was good to get that plug for the McDonnell Laurier Institute because
00:33:31.820
there's a lot of things there just worth having a look at. So yes, let's see, let's get back to
00:33:38.540
talking about balls. You know, I just can't get tired enough of that. But we have some fun around
00:33:42.940
here as well that was something though that peter mentioned is we have a fully functional newsroom
00:33:47.520
we have an office in calgary here with our news editor our copy editor our reporters uh you know
00:33:53.740
people working uh in all sorts of roles here and no more uh outlets very few have those anymore but
00:34:00.700
you know part of it too is being sociable and having fun so we got out as we said uh dave
00:34:07.280
mentioned the other day down to uh bottle screw bills is the name of the bar in calgary and they're
00:34:11.120
having their testicle festival and uh we we gave uh young jonathan bradley a chance to establish
00:34:17.140
himself so we'll run a video of that just so you can see what's going on there john bradley and
00:34:21.800
i'm a reporter with the western standard i'm here at bottle screw bills right now it's the calgary
00:34:25.920
stampede it's the annual testicle festival i'll be having prairie oysters in case you know what
00:34:31.840
prairie oysters are they're deep fried bull testicles my boss gerek has told me that i have
00:34:37.300
eat these to keep my job or he'll send me back to ontario so which i don't want to do because
00:34:42.500
albert is part of the ontario so i'm going to dig in and have some here he goes here we go here he
00:34:48.420
goes ketchup oh first impressions pretty good the deep pride takes away from the fact that
00:35:07.300
yes that was our uh king of the balls there jonathan bradley i went down there and had a ball
00:35:23.080
myself and uh it was it was all right you know it's a fun thing i honestly and hey they aren't
00:35:28.420
a sponsor or anything like that you know check it out if you want a fun spot to hit during stampede
00:35:32.720
if you're in calgary they're out on 10th avenue bottles crew bills their service was excellent
00:35:36.100
their staff were great putting up with a bunch of us loud clowns down there and that's part of what
00:35:40.200
the stampede's about get in there have some fun have a chuckle and things and uh you don't have
00:35:45.360
to eat 12 balls like jonathan did but you know it's like one of those things i did the sour
00:35:49.320
toe when i was in dawson city after taking a break on an arctic job uh you know you can check
00:35:54.540
that thing off on your list sometimes uh canadian conservative saying jonathan earning his paycheck
00:35:59.920
yes i don't think he was really going to be fired if he didn't put balls in his mouth but all the
00:36:03.740
same uh he had pressure from the the place to show he was a true westerner even though he's
00:36:09.020
recently come out here let's do in just over a year from ontario and he writes some great news
00:36:13.660
stories guys and and other things and there was the rest of the crowd there was good all right
00:36:18.200
you know speaking of that area so and speaking of some of the the fun uh kind of tying in with
00:36:24.480
everything else we've got going on with the crime i was talking about that arthur
00:36:28.740
green rights about quite often and things like that. We have that in Calgary.
00:36:33.340
These civic government skies, we've got to stop letting our municipal politicians get away with
0.59
00:36:39.780
what they do. We've got to stop putting these woke lunatics into the mayor's chairs and council
1.00
00:36:45.040
chairs. We're paying a price for it. So yeah, Calgary's downtown. As I said, we got some serious,
00:36:51.240
serious crime challenges right now. I think the reason we're not hearing about a lot of them right
00:36:54.180
now is that, you know, the Stampede is overwhelming everything with news coverage. So
00:36:59.160
in Edmonton, you're hearing it. When we were sitting there, it was at least six ambulances
00:37:04.680
went by on 10th Avenue where we were down there enjoying ourselves on the patio, having a fun
00:37:09.580
time. And we know the majority of that was for overdoses. No easy solutions, but we really got
00:37:14.560
to address those things and quit kicking the ball down the road and can down the road and trying to
00:37:18.640
procrastinate with it. But in Calgary, they're coming up with even more stupid things. Yeah,
00:37:23.320
I know. There's always room for municipal politicians to come up with stupid. And you
00:37:27.360
know, everybody in just about every city can nod their head because they know they've seen
00:37:31.820
idiotic anti-automotive policies like this come up because there's this cult-like thing. I mean,
00:37:38.500
some point out it's, you know, Agenda 2030, things like that. I think those inspire a lot
00:37:42.180
of these municipal politicians, but they really are at war with vehicles. So what they want to do,
00:37:47.740
I'm going to describe it a bit because not everybody viewing, of course, is from Calgary,
00:37:50.500
Calgary, south of the downtown, has sort of a main artery full of businesses, neat spots,
00:37:58.100
restaurants, bars, stores. It's 17th Avenue Southwest. And it goes through an area that's
00:38:04.720
called the Beltline. So it's kind of outside of the main skyscrapers, but it has a lot of
00:38:08.560
apartments, a lot of high density living and a lot of population. Well, the clowns in City Hall
00:38:13.780
are saying, you know, we should shut 17th Avenue down and make it a big, long pedestrian zone.
00:38:19.060
Oh, and they're talking seriously about this. Now, 17th Avenue moves 15,000 vehicles a day.
00:38:27.820
If you go south of 17th, describe it to others, that's Mount Royal. It's not a good neighborhood
00:38:32.380
to get through for getting one place to another. It's on a hill and it's just a rich neighborhood
00:38:35.780
full of mansions. You go north, you're going farther into downtown. Now, what the hipsters
00:38:41.380
who were supporting this idea and the others saying, oh, we would love that. We don't want
00:38:44.440
cars in our belt line. Those 15,000 vehicles are all going to pour onto the other streets guys to
00:38:50.940
get around that. They were going from one place to another place and they can't stop just because
00:38:56.020
you morons shut down access down this main road. They will just go down another one and you're
00:39:02.020
transferring the problem somewhere else, but it won't be 15,000 worth. No, 5,000 of them are going
00:39:06.740
to say, you know what, whatever I used to have to do down there, I'm just not going to do it anymore.
00:39:14.080
I'm going to go somewhere else and take my business, my time, my wallet to another spot.
00:39:21.940
Some of the citizens in these high-density traffic-laden areas will also get the hell out of there.
00:39:27.500
I've said it on Twitter, it works people up, because I live rural, actually.
00:39:29.980
I'm just outside of Calgary on an acreage, but I'm not in the city.
00:39:33.080
And every time these twits pull off stuff like this, my property values go up,
00:39:37.200
because more and more people say, I've had it, I'm out.
00:39:40.420
but I mean Calgary's downtown is a disaster zone as are many of them with the addiction with the
00:39:46.000
ground level businesses get down there for lease signs are everywhere and they talk to business
00:39:51.620
owners they bully business owners oh this will be a good idea for the businesses no it won't
00:39:56.240
no it won't neither was it when they stuck stupid freaking bike lanes in front of all of those
0.78
00:40:01.100
businesses oh that's going to bring more business to you it didn't cyclists don't spend money
1.00
00:40:06.300
god guys so you close that down it'll be great for 17th perhaps during stampede and on some nice
00:40:14.640
summer days other than that you're going to crush those businesses and you're going to make the whole
00:40:18.340
neighborhood there's a map of the city you know it's limited by a river and a number of areas
00:40:22.320
you cut that main east west access and you're going to cause a real problem the only other
00:40:28.660
decent access there's 11th and 12th avenues and what they did of course they stuck bike lanes on
00:40:33.520
them. So they've squashed all the parking off of that and they've made it narrower and narrower.
00:40:39.400
And they just, they live in this delusional world. I mean, what they want to do, what they really do
00:40:43.500
want to do, these ideologues, these nut bars, and you know, we can usually dismiss nut bars, but
00:40:48.060
unfortunately, these nut bars are winning elections in cities across the country.
00:40:52.200
I can't wait to see what Madam Chow does in Toronto. But they think if we could just hound
1.00
00:40:58.880
and harass and annoy auto drivers enough, they'll just say, you know what, I'm going to go green
00:41:05.700
and ride a bike to work in January in Calgary. I'm going to ride the bus. I'll just put on my
00:41:11.080
stab-proof vest and hope that I don't get killed on the way to work. It's not going to happen,
00:41:16.160
guys. They leave. They leave. There's no more cycle commuters in Calgary now than there were
00:41:22.200
10 years ago, despite all the bike lanes built for them. There's a lot of recreational cyclists
00:41:26.720
who use those a bit in summer, but the hardcore people who actually are going to throw on spandex,
00:41:31.680
freeze their testes off and get their way across the city to go to work has always been around two
00:41:38.360
to 3% of people like in wintertime. These are just fringe, good on them, but fringe lunatics.
00:41:43.960
They didn't need dedicated lanes. It doesn't matter. They got their lanes and we're seeing
00:41:49.100
more of it. They haven't stopped with the core. Now they're going on to 17th. Go to 8th Avenue
00:41:53.680
in Calgary. That's been a pedestrian zone for a long time. It has some neat businesses. It has
00:41:57.780
things along there. But guess what? It's also got loads of for lease signs because the city won't
00:42:02.420
stop the social disorder and nightmare that's going on there. And they've throttled all the
00:42:06.000
parking so badly that people don't come down there to visit those businesses because it costs
00:42:10.880
too bloody much. Either way, the whole bottom line of what I'm getting to is we see this everywhere.
00:42:16.800
But the part of having these progressives winning these civic elections, the problem isn't that
00:42:23.260
they're winning. It's that they're winning because only 2030 at tops, 40% of people are
00:42:28.520
bothering to get off their butts and vote in municipal elections. It's on us, guys. You got
00:42:34.700
to get out there and fire these clowns, or they're going to continue to run rampant like this. You
0.66
00:42:39.460
know, with all this stuff going on around here, too, this is something we see in Calgary.
00:42:42.780
Gondek spoke to that, and the Calgary Economic Development, which is a slush fund organization
00:42:46.740
for City Hall. We're talking about we should move away from the cowboy image of Calgary.
00:42:52.460
Yeah, we've got branding that's known internationally.
00:42:54.720
The Calgary Stampede, this cowboy thing, and yes, it's cosplay.
00:42:57.820
It's cheesy to some, but it brings a massive amount of people to the city.
00:43:02.480
It puts the city on the map, and these elected morons in City Hall think,
00:43:10.780
Because Paris is over in France, and it's a city that was based on a medieval model to begin with.
00:43:16.060
Quit trying to aspire to be what you're not and develop with what you already have.
00:43:27.720
But we've got to apply common sense to these cities, not try to be something else.
00:43:31.400
Take what you are, take your strengths, expand on them.
00:43:34.240
One of your strengths should be common sense on the part of the voters, meaning they're
00:43:39.600
You're going to bring in people who are going to actually represent you.
00:43:43.180
You're going to bring in people who want to make your place better, not rip it down
00:43:46.920
and build it into some crazed globalist hipster model that they have in their mind because it's
00:43:52.720
failing. It's not working. And it's as similar as it is with the electric vehicles. I see that
00:43:59.180
with the cyclists and the rest too. Oh, everybody's going to switch to EVs. Everybody's going to
00:44:03.060
switch to EVs. You know, we've been hearing that for 15 years. They've subsidized the crap out of
00:44:08.120
it. They've poured loads of money into EVs. And guess what? It's still only 5% of the vehicles
00:44:13.820
on the ground. Speaking of electric vehicles, maybe the day will come, but it's failed so far.
00:44:20.120
And unless they change, well, that's a separate discussion. Unless we change our climate
00:44:25.340
dramatically enough, we're not going to see a large demand for year round bicycle infrastructure
00:44:31.620
in these major cities. But now I've seen, you know, maybe there's some benefits to global warming.
00:44:37.040
If it's coming along, if you guys really want to generate support for your bike lanes to expand
00:44:43.240
and have people riding their bicycles around in February, January,
00:44:53.280
I'll ride a bike downtown in February if it's 20 above,
00:44:57.660
but I'm going to have to burn a heck of a lot more coal and wood to get there, I guess,
00:45:05.620
But I mean, yes, that case, you know, where's the common sense,
00:45:10.760
especially when it comes to the crime, the enablement. And we're seeing our cities getting
00:45:14.580
worse and worse in our centers. Look to the entire West Coast because that's where the imbeciles and
00:45:19.120
city councils seem to look for inspiration. Look to what San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver have
00:45:24.400
done with enablement of crime of every kind, whether it's drug-based or even shoplifting and
00:45:28.960
theft. It's turned every one of those cities into uninhabitable crap holes downtown. And we're
00:45:35.960
following suit. They keep saying, we want to follow the science and go with what works with
00:45:39.860
the addiction episode. Well, okay, well, we know what doesn't work. So let's rule that one out
00:45:44.540
and then start working on new things, but they won't give up. No, if we can just facilitate,
00:45:48.680
enable, give enough free supply to people long enough, they'll get off those drugs.
00:45:53.860
It's not going to happen, guys. You got to understand with addiction. And I know,
00:45:58.100
been through it. I didn't get off alcohol overnight. It was a long battle with a few
00:46:03.900
false starts. When you're addicted, you keep escalating and escalating and escalating.
00:46:12.160
This myth, this BS that it's just tainted drug supplies that's killing them.
00:46:20.720
And eventually it breaks down their body and kills them.
00:46:24.580
And if we could just clean up the drug supply enough, these guys will survive it.
00:46:34.480
It doesn't matter how pure you make your fentanyl or your crack or your methamphetamine for them.
00:46:42.160
So let's just get off that and get on to reality with it.
00:46:45.180
As Arthur Green, there we go, our goofy new fee.
00:46:48.700
Before I get going, I'm done with my ranting and raving.
00:46:53.940
But he did say, we don't give out shots at AA meetings.
00:46:58.900
If they were giving me shots of whiskey when I'd go to all my AA meetings,
00:47:01.500
I'd probably still be a drunkard today and probably wouldn't even have a job.
00:47:06.760
I'll be back to my normal outfit and ranting and raving about all sorts of other things next week at this time.
00:47:12.160
So thanks for tuning in and we will see you then.
00:47:16.520
The current Lethbridge feed grain prices are as follows.
00:47:20.000
Cash barley is at $4.28, feed wheat is at $4.18, and corn is down $3 at $3.90 per metric ton.
00:47:26.320
In the milling wheat markets, September Minneapolis futures lost $0.15 at $8.49, with local hard
00:47:33.600
red spring bids for July movement at $9.75 per bushel.
00:47:37.840
In the oilseeds, nearby canola futures increased to $11.20 at $7.98.30 per ton, with delivered
00:47:45.440
values for August movement at $18.33 per bushel.
00:47:49.240
In the pulse markets, nearby red lentils are trading at $0.34 a pound, and yellow peas
00:47:53.940
remain at 11.50 per bushel. In the cattle markets, August live cattle are down 22 cents at $1.708.60
00:48:01.220
per 100 weight. For more information on grain marketing, call me at 403-394-1711. I'm Sean
00:48:08.920
Smith at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.
00:48:14.300
Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken
00:48:18.780
And long, long ago, these guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.
00:48:28.500
And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
00:48:33.820
We've become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny.