Western Standard - CMS： Danielle Smith could change healthcare across the country

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. First one of 2024. I'm sure we'll have a lot of things

00:00:44.600 for me to moan and howl and rant and rave and go on about another year of news and insanity. I'll

00:00:51.460 be here to cover it and looking forward to it. I'm sure there's going to be some good news and

00:00:54.480 good things to look forward to. We're off to a fresh start. I'll be grumpy because that's my

00:00:58.160 nature, but I still do want to maintain a degree of optimism. If you did catch my column in the

00:01:03.540 standard this year, year-end one, I point out we've got a lot to look forward to,

00:01:08.100 but it's kind of up to us to make sure we have a good year, guys, not necessarily up to everyone

00:01:13.600 else to do it on your behalf. Good to see you guys checking in on the comment scroll over there.

00:01:17.620 We got Doug and Mr. Sharp from Saskatchewan, Mr. Stanley. Yes, use that comment scroll. We are

00:01:23.340 live, or at least for those of you who are watching it live, if you're on the Cowboy Network, this is a

00:01:27.220 recorded version, I'm afraid, but send me questions, send me comments, send them to my

00:01:31.940 guest, and I don't necessarily read them all out, but I do read them all. I see them there in the

00:01:36.880 scroll. Later on, I'm going to have a guest coming up, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. People might know him

00:01:42.000 as the food professor. He's been on a lot of radio shows, TV, does a lot of columns, and he writes

00:01:47.540 on things like grocery prices, grocers, food in general. He's a specialist in it, and that was a

00:01:52.480 big subjects in 2023. I suspect food security and prices is going to be a big one going into 2024.

00:01:58.240 So it should be a really good conversation with Mr. Charlebois there as well. So yeah,

00:02:04.960 let's get on to the news and things that have got me going today. And so I'm looking forward to,

00:02:10.800 like I said, with some optimism, but with some ranting on my part as usual as well.

00:02:15.020 So Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith, she's charging into 2024 with a mandate to take on 0.98

00:02:21.140 Alberta's bloated, intractable healthcare bureaucracy. And her success or failure in that 0.99

00:02:27.160 task is going to impact how healthcare has managed across all of Canada. Because you can rest assured

00:02:32.460 every premier in Canada is watching Smith closely on this one. I mean, let's face it, Canada's

00:02:38.280 healthcare system stinks and no province is an exception. Costs are going up every year while

00:02:43.480 access is going down. People are dying on waiting lists and the lists are only getting longer.

00:02:49.300 Citizens are finally realizing it, and I think that's what's encouraging and empowering some politicians.

00:02:53.800 They're realizing the vaunted reputation of Canada's health care system is a myth.

00:02:57.900 But still, we've got defenders of the status quo fighting tooth and nail

00:03:00.680 whenever anybody speaks of reforming the system or even changing a few little things, much less acting on it.

00:03:07.080 Unions, bureaucrats, assorted socialist activists, they refuse to accept that the system's broken

00:03:11.140 and they're doing everything possible to prevent anybody from fixing it.

00:03:14.900 Now, as more and more Canadians find themselves, their loved ones suffering under the broken system, the appetite for change is finally growing.

00:03:21.280 And Daniel Smith is the first Premier to really stick her neck out on the issue.

00:03:25.040 And her battle, though, is just beginning.

00:03:27.000 I mean, she began by cutting from the top with Alberta's massive health care management bureaucracy. 1.00

00:03:31.620 Shortly after she became Premier a little over a year ago, her government fired Chief Medical Officer Dina Hinshaw. 0.99

00:03:37.520 Then she fired the entire Alberta Health Services Board.

00:03:40.540 That's the bureaucracy that runs Alberta's health care. 1.00

00:03:43.340 And finally, she fired Dr. Verna Yu from a position of CEO at AHS.

00:03:48.840 Not Premier Smith personally doing all this, but under her guidance, the government did.

00:03:52.880 Now, the NDP and the unions and the rest of the usual suspects, of course, they were apoplectic.

00:03:57.660 Lazy media members and activists alike, they rallied in 2023 in the spring election to ensure Smith didn't win.

00:04:04.080 They failed. Smith won.

00:04:05.860 And now she does have a real mandate to reform that system. 1.00

00:04:08.420 And it looks like she's going to go for it since the election.

00:04:11.880 Premier Smith has split Alberta Health Services into several different entities.

00:04:15.580 Now, ostensibly, this is to allow for more specialized policies in different aspects of health care,

00:04:19.880 but there's likely, and there likely is some merit to that.

00:04:22.040 But more importantly, and more likely, that organization is split up because it makes it harder for the bureaucrats

00:04:27.700 to put up an organized front in hindering reforms.

00:04:30.840 Premier Smith warned when she won the last election in one of her speeches.

00:04:34.300 She said she won't let herself be slow-rolled by the bureaucracy.

00:04:37.060 But it appears that Alberta Health Services managers didn't get the message as they've been dragging their heels on mandates to improve service.

00:04:44.320 I mean, one simple mandate, for example, was with ambulance services.

00:04:47.260 Tens of thousands of trips are made every year using fully equipped ambulances crewed by paramedics to transport non-emergency patients.

00:04:54.800 It's a terrible waste of resources, and it ties up highly trained workers and highly specialized equipment when we don't need to.

00:05:01.700 The mandate was handed down for AHS to seek some private contractors to take over some of the role of the non-emergency patient transports.

00:05:08.400 It's simple, common sense, and it's a big problem, and it frees up ambulances.

00:05:12.520 Instead of taking the mandate seriously, though, AHS bureaucrats devised a ridiculous set of conditions 0.87

00:05:16.700 and created a number of barriers for any private contractors trying to seek the contracts.

00:05:21.020 They're moving as slowly as possible, and they're continuing to find excuses not to approve applications.

00:05:26.460 Meanwhile, Alberta's literally hitting situations where regions have run out of ambulance service.

00:05:30.400 including just on New Year's Eve this year in major cities. Premier Smith has had enough of it

00:05:35.400 and she's laying down the law. In a recent interview, she made no bones about it and she said

00:05:38.920 that's what our focus is. This is a quote from her. It's firing the managers who we have paid 0.57

00:05:43.140 to solve these problems and they've allowed the problems to perpetuate and they've done nothing

00:05:47.380 about them. Yeah, the Premier is bold to the point and unequivocable. Managers have better

00:05:52.600 prove they're getting things done and they're going to be fired. It only makes sense. It's not

00:05:57.080 an unreasonable expectation in the private sector, and it shouldn't be with healthcare bureaucrats

00:06:01.000 either. Of course, again, the usual suspects have gone wild. They're claiming Smith has overstepped

00:06:04.620 her role or mandate and that she hasn't had the right to make those decisions. Well, I call BS

00:06:09.400 on that. Daniel Smith was elected as Alberta's premier to do exactly this sort of thing. If an

00:06:14.720 elected premier can't call the shots with the largest public bureaucracy in the province, who

00:06:17.960 can and who should? Union heads? Activists? The leader of the opposition? No, you guys didn't win

00:06:24.300 the bloody election, so too damn bad. The tail's been wagging the dog for too long at all levels 0.97

00:06:28.600 of government. I mean, we watched that in Calgary City Hall. It was almost nauseating watching

00:06:32.160 elected councillors being called under the carpet for questioning senior bureaucrats and city

00:06:37.080 managers. If elected officials don't hold the bureaucrats to account, who will? Nobody. In fact,

00:06:42.180 nobody has for years, and look where it got us. Shaking up the Canadian healthcare system has

00:06:46.380 been considered political blasphemy for way too long. The system's failing, and thankfully,

00:06:50.820 Premier Smith is willing to break away from Canadian dogma, become an apostate and get the

00:06:55.420 job done. The battle of wills is just beginning though, but I'm betting on Smith winning it.

00:07:00.140 And when Smith wins and healthcare begins to improve in Alberta, rest assured other premiers

00:07:04.720 who are too cowardly to put their necks on the line will follow. Alberta is lucky to be in a

00:07:10.980 province with a premier willing to lead. Her actions and tenacity are going to benefit us all

00:07:15.240 within and outside of Alberta, and it's about time. All right, that's what I've got to say on

00:07:21.160 those things today. Let's see what else is going on out there outside of my control, though we're

00:07:24.600 gonna have a news check-in from the intrepid Jonathan Bradley and see what's going on out

00:07:29.780 there. Hey Jonathan, how's it going? Good, Corey, how about you? All right, all right, finished with

00:07:33.900 the holidays, ready to get on, like I said, with cursing and ranting and raving for a whole new

00:07:38.180 year. So what are you breaking on now, Jonathan? Well, it's been a busy morning in the newsroom

00:07:43.340 and we still got plenty more to come.

00:07:45.400 So right now on the site, on our front page,

00:07:49.080 the main story is Chrystia Freeland

00:07:51.480 built for limos and taxis in Toronto.

00:07:54.560 She spent a few thousand dollars

00:07:56.020 on going around the greater Toronto area

00:07:59.780 with limos and taxis,

00:08:01.800 despite her saying that she spent,

00:08:04.320 that she would only travel with climate friendly options

00:08:07.040 like walking and taking public transit.

00:08:10.740 We have a story about the Sask Energy Minister maintaining the carbon tax slash won't affect

00:08:16.340 rebates. This is because the Saskatchewan government has suspended the carbon tax on

00:08:22.660 home heating and there are the climate action incentive payments that people get from a carbon

00:08:28.180 tax. We have a column from Michelle Sterling about a pension fund and it being used to fund

00:08:38.260 climate change initiatives so that's uh on the opinion side we have a piece that just went up

00:08:45.060 earlier this morning about janice erwin praising edmonton for showing up for palestine

00:08:50.500 um which is kind of funny because i'm not sure if she knows what happens to people like her in

00:08:54.180 palestine and it's not good um and then we also got a column that i wrote um i was in toronto

00:09:03.060 over christmas and i know many calgarians have to insult uh toronto and say that it's a hellhole

00:09:08.660 and garbage and all that and my column challenge that premise by offering five reasons why toronto

00:09:13.580 is not that terrible that's a pretty controversial stance to be taking with the western standard

00:09:19.080 jonathan you can expect a lot of emails coming at you on that one for for daring to you know

00:09:24.900 speaking of political blasphemy and alberta has blasphemy to say there's anything nice about

00:09:28.180 toronto well um i the column's been up for i think about almost a day now and i haven't got a single

00:09:33.820 nasty email from it yet so if any of your viewers want to send me a nasty email uh the email is

00:09:38.380 jbradley at western standard.news and i'm more than happy to read all the nasty insults

00:09:43.800 well i'll start typing up my email for you right after that's great thanks for writing it up it

00:09:50.060 is good to have a variety i appreciate it and thanks for bringing us up to date on what's going

00:09:53.780 on in the news today jonathan thank you cory all right thank you that is our jonathan bradley

00:09:58.160 sitting in for Dave Naylor, our news editor, who usually comes in to give us the update,

00:10:01.980 but he's taking a well-deserved break over the holidays right now. This is when I like to remind

00:10:06.060 everybody the reason we got guys like Jonathan and others out there writing all these news stories

00:10:11.300 and columns is because you guys have been subscribing. So I like to remind you, thank you

00:10:16.020 very much, those who have subscribed already. And if you haven't subscribed, start off the new year

00:10:20.960 the right way, guys. $9.99 a month, $100 for a year. You get full access. Get past that annoying

00:10:27.540 paywall and get, uh, all of those columns and news copy directly. And it supports us. It lets

00:10:33.860 us keep rolling like this. So we don't have to become dependent on the government, uh, or any

00:10:38.400 other outside sources for our, uh, news content. And, uh, we all win and I can keep working. I can

00:10:45.000 keep turning your ear and keep ranting at you. So I, you know, before I get to my guests, I'm

00:10:49.060 looking forward to speaking of media, this is something that came up on, uh, the, the AP it's

00:10:55.980 it's a news wire and a lot of, um, you know, news organizations will take these, uh, stories and

00:11:02.680 they, you know, they pay a subscription service, they put them up and, uh, they'll just take the

00:11:06.520 headline quite often and just plant that right in there. But this one was really something else,

00:11:10.900 uh, associated press. And it said, Harvard president's resignation highlights a new

00:11:17.320 conservative weapon against colleagues. And then it says plagiarism. Okay. So I mean, if people

00:11:24.740 haven't been keeping up. It's been pretty controversial. The now former president of

00:11:28.900 Harvard, I mean, one of the most highly reputed post-secondary institutions in the world,

00:11:34.560 Claudine Gay was in there. And most of it really hit the fan during some testimony

00:11:38.860 when her and a couple of other university heads kept twisting in circles and refusing to condemn

00:11:45.540 some of the very blatant hate speech and intimidation and activities being done on

00:11:51.400 campuses by activists over the Israel and Gaza conflict going on. And it really caused a lot

00:11:57.800 of embarrassment. It certainly upset a whole lot of people. And, you know, if you read between the

00:12:03.060 lines, and some people were pretty blunt about it, there are some Jewish business people and some

00:12:09.400 people of very heavy means who were very large donors to institutions like Harvard. And they

00:12:14.420 were quite upset. And they made it clear that they weren't going to be sending money to that

00:12:17.560 institution any longer if the president was going to be permissive on those things. And she still 0.99

00:12:23.060 doubled down on that. But what it led to then was more people getting on her case and searching

00:12:27.100 into her a little more. Who is this person? And they looked and found that among many of her

00:12:34.740 things she's published as an academic, as the head of a university that big, including her

00:12:39.860 dissertation, she was a serial plagiarist. She had been lifting her material from the work of others.

00:12:46.400 I mean, you can be inspired by the work of others as long as you, of course, give credit to it and you source it.

00:12:52.980 But she didn't do that. And it wasn't a case of somebody just doing it once.

00:12:57.380 I mean, a one off, an error, a student time when you were too hung over and you just had to get something in.

00:13:02.400 No, this was kind of actually kind of chronic and so on.

00:13:05.180 And finally, the pressure came up and Ms. Gay resigned her position from from being the president. 1.00

00:13:11.420 Fine. And there'll be a lot more discussion on that as time passes.

00:13:14.480 But to see this headline come up and talk about now, plagiarism will be a weapon against colleges used by conservatives.

00:13:23.700 Where on earth did you guys get this?

00:13:27.260 I mean, it's not like conservatives invented this as a new offense to be committed by academics.

00:13:32.040 It's been done before.

00:13:33.080 That's why there's a word for it.

00:13:34.880 And it's frowned upon.

00:13:35.980 It certainly is.

00:13:37.200 These are the people we're expecting to lead.

00:13:38.880 These are the people we're expecting to think.

00:13:40.420 We're expecting them to guide us, to offer original interpretation and analysis and studies.

00:13:47.380 And if they're just taking it from other people, cut and pasting it, then it's a big problem.

00:13:52.960 It's nothing conservatives invented.

00:13:55.120 It's not a new bar or standard that's been set that we expect academia to stand by.

00:14:01.320 Likewise in journalism.

00:14:02.520 If I was just copying my columns and just splattering them out there, guys, I would hear about it pretty darn fast.

00:14:09.000 I would be fired pretty darn quickly. And whoever originally wrote them would probably be sending me

00:14:14.280 some legal notices pretty quickly as well. I mean, I can quote from other columnists and

00:14:18.420 news stories, of course, but you source it, you reference it, but you've got to write your own

00:14:23.400 stuff. This isn't new. And if I were called out on, if I were doing that and some people noticed

00:14:28.860 it and found it, it's pretty easy now in the social media world and the day and age where

00:14:32.220 you could search things. And I got fired. Would headlines be saying that I was held to an unfair

00:14:38.560 standard by left-wing activists because they called me out for my plagiarism? No, they're just saying

00:14:44.360 that guy's full of crap and he doesn't deserve to be putting columns out if he can't write his own 1.00

00:14:49.000 stuff. Either way, this is the sort of thing, the sort of headline that leads to more mistrust with 1.00

00:14:54.720 media. I mean, this wasn't a column. This was an, at least it was presented as news copy. This wasn't

00:15:00.880 opinion. So where are you coming up with this, this conservative weapon against colleges? And

00:15:08.260 it was just bizarre. And of course, CTV picked it up and just planted that story in verbatim. Like

00:15:13.300 I said, a lot of media does that. We use Black Lock's reporter law, but of course we always say

00:15:17.580 where we got our stuff from. You use newswires. We have a lot of reporters. We get a lot of

00:15:21.360 original content, but we're careful with what we curate. And if we see a headline as loaded and as

00:15:26.860 bad as that rest assured we aren't going to print it all right well that's enough of that let's get

00:15:31.760 on to something else with our guest i've been looking forward to chatting with him for a while

00:15:34.560 i've really enjoyed watching him uh and reading his columns on social media on x uh hear him on

00:15:40.760 the radio now and then it's uh known as the food professor as well as dr sylvae charlebois and you

00:15:46.560 speak on i guess all things food thank you very much for joining us today uh mr charlebois well

00:15:51.600 Well, thank you for the invitation.

00:15:52.820 Happy New Year to you.

00:15:54.080 Yes, and to yourself.

00:15:56.920 You know, as far as, I guess, your specialty, your trade and talking about food, food security, food prices, supply chains.

00:16:03.540 I mean, you really cover it all.

00:16:04.980 2024 was really a year when you, or 2023, where your specialty really came into the news a lot.

00:16:10.860 People got very concerned about food inflation.

00:16:14.720 You know, the wallets are getting thinner.

00:16:16.740 Food is a necessity for people.

00:16:18.400 People were getting upset.

00:16:19.240 But then there was a lot of, well, as is normal, a lot of politics started getting played and a lot of fingers were getting pointed.

00:16:27.520 And I found your voice to be good for correcting the record a lot and just kind of putting an unvarnished view on that.

00:16:32.980 Like, I guess I'll start with a simple question.

00:16:35.340 Have Canadians been getting gouged by food retailers in the last year?

00:16:40.500 I mean, it depends how you define gouging.

00:16:44.560 I mean, for some economists, allowing companies to make one dollar is too much.

00:16:51.160 And so I've always asked some of the experts out there and politicians, well, if right now companies are making too much money, how much is too much?

00:17:01.580 And we've never gotten a clear answer to that.

00:17:04.720 But my answer to you, clearly, Corey, when you look at the evidence, when you actually look at verified, audited financial reports coming from companies, there is no evidence of gouging.

00:17:17.120 If you look at gross margins, which to me is probably the most important metric, you look at revenues, you look at the cost of goods, if that changes due to inflation, you'll notice.

00:17:29.920 I mean, you'll notice. And for the big three, Empire, Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro, all three gross margins have not changed in five years.

00:17:40.320 And so that's why it's difficult to say, well, there's gouging going on.

00:17:44.700 However, and this is a big however, margins are actually quite high compared to the U.S.

00:17:50.920 They're double what they are in the U.S. 0.86

00:17:52.860 And we've seen some shortfalls in Ottawa with the bread price-fixing scandal, for example, the investigation going on for eight years.

00:18:03.840 So I can't blame Canadians for being upset about what's going on.

00:18:11.720 I actually totally understand why they're upset, because they feel unprotected.

00:18:16.960 But as far as gouging goes, the evidence is just not there.

00:18:21.500 Yeah, well, and that's what I appreciate is you don't give a full pass to the heads of these grocers as well and such.

00:18:26.800 There's been some sort of controversy over the proposed code of conduct and Galen Weston and some of you corrected him on some of the things that he's been claiming as he's sort of trying to squirm to avoid that code of conduct.

00:18:38.360 I mean, he's not a monster, but he's not an altruist or, you know, a charitable person either.

00:18:44.300 He's not there to make money.

00:18:45.940 Of course, he runs a very well-managed company, by the way.

00:18:50.640 In fact, I would say that all three main grocers are well managed, and that's why they've been successful in pushing away competition like Target, which came in and left in 2014 as quickly.

00:19:07.460 And we have seen Aldi and Little.

00:19:10.960 Both companies are now in the U.S.

00:19:13.600 They've looked at Canada.

00:19:15.260 It's just not recent.

00:19:16.180 They've been looking at Canada for quite some time, but it's difficult to get in to the Canadian market for two reasons.

00:19:22.660 One, it's not an attractive market, especially when you see a federal government constantly inviting CEOs back to Ottawa and question them about profiteering.

00:19:35.880 I don't think that's an appealing strategy for any company looking into Canada.

00:19:43.020 The other issue, of course, is the fact that really the Canadian market is dominated by two players.

00:19:50.860 They did take the rules.

00:19:52.240 If you understand how food distribution works in Canada, you quickly understand that both Walmart and Loblaws will make and break companies.

00:20:00.460 They have too much power.

00:20:03.120 And that's kind of what Australia had prior to adopting the code and the UK as well.

00:20:10.540 And since then, we've seen food prices become much more stable over time.

00:20:16.760 You don't eliminate inflation.

00:20:18.160 Of course, you want inflation.

00:20:19.500 You want food prices to increase over time.

00:20:22.740 But in both Australia and the UK, food prices have actually been quite stable compared to Canada.

00:20:30.600 And that's probably due to the code.

00:20:33.460 So that code of conduct, what we're talking about, that's an industry-managed code and sort of thing,

00:20:38.680 or of an industry association, not a government-invoked legislation?

00:20:42.840 That's a good question, Corey.

00:20:44.400 It's a fair question because a lot of people, I noticed that a lot of people are thinking,

00:20:48.080 well, the code is really about the government's tweaking market conditions.

00:20:53.600 That's not exactly it.

00:20:54.680 It has nothing to do with prices.

00:20:57.200 As Galen Weston alluded in Ottawa, wrongly so, it is more about contractual terms.

00:21:04.980 You see, what's different in the food industry is that you have to pay your customer in order to do business with that customer.

00:21:12.380 So Loblaws will receive five, six million dollars from PepsiCo to allow Pepsi to sell Lay's chips.

00:21:21.280 Just one example. And every year, Loblaws will change terms, will say this year will increase your fee by this much.

00:21:30.120 No questions asked, no discussions unilaterally.

00:21:34.500 And that has bothered suppliers.

00:21:36.580 And that's why it's not a coincidence that we saw Nestle leave the K market.

00:21:40.760 Kleenex just left the K market.

00:21:42.920 We'll see more companies leave the K market because, again, Loblaws will set rules, Walmart as well, and others will follow along.

00:21:52.600 So unlike the U.S. or other places, it's just tough.

00:21:57.600 it's much tougher to offer consumers more choices.

00:22:02.200 And with more choices, you'll get more competition,

00:22:04.780 which is why the Code of Conduct is so critical

00:22:07.420 to support independent grocers and suppliers as well.

00:22:13.140 Yeah, people forget that the competition aspect

00:22:15.120 isn't just a benefit to the consumer.

00:22:16.700 When you've got suppliers,

00:22:17.580 when they can really push suppliers around like that

00:22:19.580 with the limited options for the suppliers to go to,

00:22:22.260 it harms them.

00:22:23.840 But I mean, we don't want to go down the road,

00:22:25.260 say it almost reminds me though of the old days of Microsoft when it really dominated the market

00:22:29.520 and they used to push every other software company into a corner and say you know if you're going to

00:22:35.000 be carried by the Microsoft platforms we got to cut a deal or we just won't carry you and of course

00:22:39.900 there really were only three platforms to be had so they held a lot of power and I think it took

00:22:45.040 antitrust hearings to break that down now the grocery market shouldn't be as complicated but

00:22:50.000 I guess that's the sort of thing we can't just force competition to come into the country

00:22:54.860 but the code of conduct might reduce the amount they're pushing around the suppliers a bit?

00:22:59.540 It would correct some of the mistakes that we made in the past.

00:23:03.060 My reading of the situation right now is that there were three major transactions

00:23:09.780 that really allowed this oligopoly to emerge.

00:23:15.380 In 1998, Loblaws bought Provigo in Quebec.

00:23:18.800 That's number one.

00:23:19.760 Number two, Metro bought AMP in Ontario.

00:23:22.800 That created the other grocer. And lastly, in 2013, Empire Sobe's bought Safeway Out West. That created those three big players. And of course, along the way, we saw non-traditionals like Costco, Walmart become quite successful in selling food to Canadians.

00:23:41.740 And that's why we're in the situation we are in. In the U.S., they don't really need a code. Why? Because Washington is all over some of these mergers. For example, right now, Kroger is trying to buy Albertsons, so number two is trying to buy number four in the U.S., and they're blocking the deal because they don't feel that the deal would be in the best interest of Americans right now.

00:24:09.700 So those two companies are under tremendous pressure. When Loblaw bought Provigo or Metro bought A&P or even Sobeys, when it acquired Safeway, we barely heard anything in the news. Nobody cared. And that's why we're in trouble right now.

00:24:27.780 so part of the problem i mean there's advantages though it's bad for competition there's advantages

00:24:34.120 of having a few large players because those large economies of scale can allow them to

00:24:38.500 keep the consumer prices somewhat low as well in a relative way like if you break it up into too

00:24:43.220 many small players we could end up paying more as well exactly and here's the thing about canada

00:24:49.000 so we're only 40 million people in one of the largest countries and well the second largest

00:24:53.940 country in the world, distribution costs are really, really high.

00:24:58.940 So you have a lot of small towns where you are in Alberta and elsewhere where you only

00:25:05.840 have one option left to buy food because of the consolidation that we've seen over the

00:25:13.840 years.

00:25:14.360 So a lot of Canadians are actually being held hostage as a result of these acquisitions

00:25:19.940 without really having a say.

00:25:22.020 And so Washington right now is very careful. They'll be looking at transactions in a very granular way. So they'll look at New Haven, Connecticut, how many stores will they lose compared to before and things like that.

00:25:37.920 In Canada, we only look at the national landscape and see whether or not Canadians win.

00:25:44.620 But I've always argued to Minister Champagne himself, whenever there's a transaction coming in, we need to actually look at all aspects of the deal.

00:25:55.500 And we've actually had the privilege to work with the Accomplishing Bureau in three occasions of the last five years.

00:26:01.440 And you can tell that they're not well-tooled to assess longitudinal risks, understanding how a transaction could impact our food distribution landscape over time.

00:26:15.900 And now we're paying for that.

00:26:18.920 So something that really broke a lot of trust, even if it was, you know, I mean, your average consumer didn't feel it a lot, but it's the principle of the matter.

00:26:25.540 You mentioned it earlier, was the bread price fixing issue.

00:26:28.840 We heard a lot about it.

00:26:32.760 People don't like to think that they're being manipulated, I guess, with what they purchase, even if it only adds up to a little bit.

00:26:37.800 It costs a billion dollars to Canadians.

00:26:39.860 Like, that's real money.

00:26:41.140 That's a lot of money when it's added up.

00:26:42.540 It's a lot of money.

00:26:43.400 And frankly, when you look at the U.S., for example, there's one executive that we got caught fixing prices for canned tuna.

00:26:52.420 That person is in jail right now and paid a fine, I believe, of over $100,000, okay?

00:27:00.160 In tuna, canned tuna.

00:27:01.920 In Canada, we gave a pass to Galen Weston and Loblaw.

00:27:05.780 We gave immunity to Loblaw and Western Bakeries.

00:27:10.000 And so that really became a problem of trust.

00:27:13.520 And so really right now, what we need to do is focus more on, well, how Canadians feel and how we can protect them.

00:27:23.360 So I guess another issue we have that's a little different, but it affects a lot of grocery staples.

00:27:29.200 And I've heard you mention it occasionally, is supply management, which covers our poultry, our dairy products.

00:27:35.680 I just thought I'd throw that in towards the end.

00:27:37.300 My favorite topic.

00:27:37.960 because i mean it's not a panacea to to reduce grocery prices or anything but it's funny when

00:27:44.440 canadians say they're upset about monopolies they they seem to constantly overlook one of

00:27:48.100 the worst monopolies of them all and and that's the producers of those products right now but

00:27:52.200 there's no indication anybody's going to change that anytime soon i imagine canadians have a very

00:27:57.280 bizarre relationship with uh with with concepts like monopolies and oligopolies so uh on the one

00:28:04.800 side, Canadians want government to intervene. They want to be protected. They want monopolies

00:28:12.860 until pricing becomes an issue. And so in the case of supply management,

00:28:22.040 so first of all, you're looking at farm gate issues, farmers, and farmers are incredibly

00:28:28.020 trusted by the Canadian public. But at the same time, a lot of Canadians actually don't realize

00:28:33.540 how supply management is inflating prices at retail.

00:28:37.960 It is, no matter what you say,

00:28:40.860 no matter what the dairy farmers are saying

00:28:42.840 or poultry farmers or chicken farmers,

00:28:45.560 it is pushing food prices higher, okay?

00:28:49.320 Now, is that something we can get rid of?

00:28:52.980 I've been studying marketing boards for 25 years

00:28:55.860 and my conclusion is that

00:28:58.160 as much as we hate supply management,

00:29:01.200 we can't get rid of it.

00:29:02.560 It's just unlike the Europe where I was in 2015 when they ended supply management, a lot of farmers wanted out because they were levies.

00:29:13.640 And the system actually did cost a lot of money to farmers.

00:29:17.240 In Canada, good luck finding one farmer who was against the system.

00:29:21.100 All of them really support the system.

00:29:23.120 So I've always argued instead of abolishing quotas, let's make sure that we actually make supply management more efficient and more competitive.

00:29:31.860 because right now it is not competitive uh in fact marketing boards are doing everything they

00:29:39.700 can to suppress competition without consumers knowing yeah and i don't expect it to change

00:29:46.620 soon that's part of why i asked i cornered uh mr uh pierpoliev on the show one time and asked him

00:29:51.740 with that one as well i don't think he likes going there but he at least was honest and said no it's

00:29:56.500 not an area that they're looking to to change or get rid of it they can't afford it yeah politicians

00:30:01.380 just can't afford it because they're so powerful.

00:30:05.680 I've always argued instead of sending out checks in compensation for trade deals we're

00:30:11.120 signing all over the world, we should take that money and buy some farmers out as soon

00:30:16.080 as possible because some farmers actually do want to compete, but some of them don't.

00:30:22.100 They just don't want to compete.

00:30:23.640 And so I would keep the great, the very competitive, efficient farmers and grow their business

00:30:29.980 with exports as well and create a new set of quotas and new categories, which is actually

00:30:34.900 in our supply management 2.0 plan, which we released, I believe it was two years ago

00:30:40.360 now with the University of Guelph.

00:30:42.020 It's all in the plan.

00:30:43.720 And all you need to do is basically eliminate farmers who don't want to compete and build

00:30:50.200 a system which allows the sector to grow even more.

00:30:55.360 Because right now we're on the path of seeing more farms disappear.

00:30:59.420 We're going to get down to 5,000 dairy farms by 2030, and the Cain Dairy Commission will continue to rubber stamp decisions that are supported by dairy farmers instead of looking at competitiveness overall.

00:31:14.300 Okay, well, we'll see what happens.

00:31:16.520 I appreciate you've done a lot of work on it.

00:31:19.120 Before I let you go, then, perhaps if you could just give a bit of a prediction on what consumers can look forward to in 2024 with grocery prices, and where can we find information on where your work is?

00:31:28.440 Yeah, absolutely. So yes, they should be looking forward to 2024 compared to 2023. I mean, 2023 was tough. We were asked to spend more money on shelter, the other necessity of life. And so when we showed up at the grocery store, we were spending less despite inflation.

00:31:48.880 It's not going to happen in 2024.

00:31:51.100 In fact, we actually are expecting some price wars at the center of the store, probably

00:31:56.600 midway through 2024.

00:31:58.620 Things are tightening up in the economy, and that's going to benefit consumers overall.

00:32:04.560 So that's my reading, my very quick reading of what is about to happen in 2024.

00:32:10.080 So all good news, well, better news, I guess, for consumers overall.

00:32:14.020 As far as our work goes, you can just look up all of our reports.

00:32:19.300 They're available on our website.

00:32:21.000 You can just go on the Dalhousie University website, the Agri-Food Analytics Lab,

00:32:26.260 and you'll find all of our reports, and they're available for free in both English and French.

00:32:32.500 Excellent.

00:32:33.140 Well, I appreciate, again, the work you do and your being able to come on to talk to us today.

00:32:38.220 Again, it sounds at least a bit optimistic that things have stabilized a little into the next year.

00:32:43.380 We've had some crazy years and there's no getting around it.

00:32:48.180 The one thing that really concerns us right now is what's happening in Israel.

00:32:53.540 If the conflict broadens and it may happen, that could actually affect food prices worldwide, not just in Canada, but worldwide due to the region's link to oil specifically.

00:33:10.180 And so that's something that we're watching very closely.

00:33:13.380 Because in 2008, that's exactly what happened.

00:33:16.060 Oil went up and everything else went up as well.

00:33:19.260 And so we don't want that in 2024.

00:33:21.760 No, yeah, there's a lot that's beyond our control and all we can do is watch for it

00:33:25.420 and just hope for some sort of easing of the conflict over there.

00:33:29.140 Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:30.320 All right.

00:33:30.860 Well, thank you very much again.

00:33:32.260 And also on X, you're very prolific on there.

00:33:37.000 So I just encourage folks to look you up.

00:33:39.100 And, well, I hope we get to talk again soon.

00:33:41.780 Thank you for inviting me, Corey.

00:33:42.920 All right. Take care. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie University. And yeah, look,

00:33:49.100 he's got all sorts of good stuff, all things food. And it's the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at

00:33:54.840 Dalhousie University. And he covers those things because there's been a lot of discussion on it.

00:33:59.100 And a lot has been heated. A lot has been misguided. What I like about him, I'm all about

00:34:03.460 bias. I'm all about ranting. I'm all about raving. Mr. Charlebois, Dr. Charlebois is about the facts.

00:34:09.400 he just sticks to it. As I said, he doesn't give a pass to the big grocery producers, but at the

00:34:13.560 same time, he doesn't give a pass to the government, people like Jagmeet Singh when

00:34:17.960 they're trying to demonize grocery retailers and say they're gouging or gougeflation and all

00:34:23.380 those terms they use. He just sticks to the facts. Something he mentioned, others have mentioned,

00:34:29.620 even the Competition Bureau in Ottawa mentioned, though, and they looked into it. We don't have

00:34:33.400 enough competitors here, but how do you get them in? Uh, you know, Mr. Shaw was good at pointing

00:34:39.460 out, like, how do you want to bring in a new player to Canada when we're prone to taking

00:34:43.180 our retailers and dragging them before, uh, parliamentary committees and grilling them for

00:34:49.300 them daring to make money? It's not an atmosphere that a business can say, Hey, I'm going to pick

00:34:53.320 up, you know, sticks and, and set up over in that country. Cause I want to take that abuse.

00:34:58.240 Supply management, another interesting one. I mean, I've done shows on it. We can do whole

00:35:01.760 shows on. I see Terry O'Malley

00:35:03.700 talking about that.

00:35:05.900 Bernier lost the CPC

00:35:07.660 leadership based on the supply

00:35:09.600 management. I mean, it was a one-point difference back

00:35:11.620 then in

00:35:13.040 the winning of that leadership. And there's

00:35:15.660 no doubt that a deal was

00:35:17.600 struck with the dairy

00:35:19.420 cartel, and it is a cartel,

00:35:21.320 to support the other candidate

00:35:23.520 over supply management. They were a very

00:35:25.400 effective and powerful lobby

00:35:27.660 group. And

00:35:29.100 it's weird with Canada. We have

00:35:31.680 a love affair with these cartels, these monopolies at times, even though we're kind of getting

00:35:37.520 hooped by them. But getting rid of it, as I said as well, I did ask Pauliev, Trudeau is certainly

00:35:43.340 not going to get rid of it. And Pauliev at least was honest and said, no, he's not going to either.

00:35:47.280 But I'm going to look more into that because I haven't read that whole thing without that 2.0

00:35:50.800 plan. It sounds like Dalhousie University with Professor Charlebois have been talking about

00:35:55.940 ways we can maybe ease out of it. Because as you said, there are dairy producers who want to get

00:35:59.740 creative. They want to open their markets. They want to do more, but they're constrained. So maybe

00:36:05.620 ways that we can break out some of the producers and yes, incrementally work ourselves out of the

00:36:12.420 system because just trying to flick a switch and end it would cause more disruption in the longer

00:36:17.300 term. Uh, and we would all have a lot of trouble. Uh, another thing, yeah, you know that, so it

00:36:22.480 sounds kind of good. Uh, but yeah, Wildrose is bringing up another good one at one of our

00:36:27.140 commenters ground beef 10 bucks for a 550 ground package and in province full of cows this is in

00:36:32.040 alberta and yet we are really taking it as consumers when it comes to beef that's been an

00:36:38.200 ongoing thing too and they're all fighting with each other because ranchers are saying they're

00:36:42.080 not making any more money than they used to and and grocers margins as we've seen it's been studied

00:36:47.280 and studied and checked and looked at uh they're narrow they're five six percent i mean they might

00:36:52.760 be able to come down a little more in the States, you know, they're more like 4%, 3%, but you can't

00:36:57.960 come much lower. They've got to make money. So where is that all that extra cost coming in with

00:37:03.420 beef? Why is it costing so much bloody money? And, you know, processing is one of them. I know

00:37:10.380 in Alberta, we've got what, like, I think in Canada, we've really only got two really large

00:37:14.780 meat processors. So again, getting back to monopolies and oligopolies and the lack of

00:37:19.600 competition, I got a feeling we're getting, we're taking it a bit there without doubt. But we should

00:37:25.600 be questioning it. Marie Perrin said we should, we need to buy direct from the farmer. You know,

00:37:29.560 I've had that discussion before. I had a lot of it on X. I live in Prittis. It's an acreage just

00:37:35.060 south of Calgary. And most of my neighbors are ranchers actually in that area. It's ranch country

00:37:40.040 and we know people. And Jane and I have bought quarters and halves of beef and filled the freezer

00:37:45.120 with it for one you know what it may be when you add it all together with some of the prime cuts

00:37:50.760 versus the ground and everything you save a little bit of money but to be honest after getting the

00:37:54.620 beef cut and packaged and all of that the price was pretty similar to what i would get in buying

00:38:01.260 it say at costco or somewhere like that uh the producer got a little bit better money because

00:38:06.020 we were dealing directly with her rather than than um you know going through the rest of the

00:38:11.020 process. So it's good that way. But the other thing is not everybody has that ability. The

00:38:15.240 only way to make that cost worthwhile, you have to have the connection with the producer. You have

00:38:20.060 to have a deep freeze to keep all of that meat. You've got to have the capital on hand. I mean,

00:38:23.640 let's say your parents with a tight budget and a bunch of kids, you can't afford to tie up $1,200

00:38:28.480 worth of meat in your freezer. You just don't have that laying around. But if you don't buy it in a

00:38:32.700 volume that big, you're not going to save any money. So I mean, it's an option for some people.

00:38:36.420 absolutely it's good for the producers and it's good for individuals but for most people people

00:38:41.660 in the city and that too it's it's not quite um uh as viable a way to get out of the the challenge

00:38:49.400 as others but you know we we food is i mean everything gets called right everything gets

00:38:54.660 called this and that but food is a need i mean there's no getting around that one nobody can

00:38:58.180 debate that we we don't have food we die simple as that so we're of course very concerned about

00:39:03.560 the price of food, the affordability of food. We can't avoid it. It's not one of those things

00:39:07.340 saying, well, it's overpriced. I'll just not buy it this year. So we've got to try and keep those

00:39:12.080 costs in line. And it's ongoing. So I mean, having those discussions, though, watching this,

00:39:19.840 seeing what's really going on out there, to some degree, you know, our demographics are the size

00:39:25.320 of our country. Professor Charlebaugh brought that up. You know, Canada's huge. You got to move

00:39:30.040 those products across large distances to get them to people in small towns, you're just not going to

00:39:35.040 have the volume, you're going to pay a little bit more. I worked years up in Inuvik, you know,

00:39:40.600 I mean, up there, the prices are through the roof for food, because everything either gets the dry

00:39:45.860 goods all get brought up by barge in summertime. And some stuff comes in winter by truck on the

00:39:53.300 Dempster Highway. And sometimes when the ice bridge isn't in yet, and the ferry's been shut

00:39:57.360 down. There's nothing coming by truck for a long period of time. You just can't avoid high costs.

00:40:02.620 Everything else has to be flown in. But I mean, that's not gouging. That's just market realities

00:40:07.360 with where you are. And it just kind of gets smaller and smaller as you get to larger population

00:40:11.580 centers. As somebody was pointing out, a lot of the processing and everything's happening in

00:40:15.380 Mississauga and Toronto area. But that's, of course, again, because you've got a dense population

00:40:20.280 of people you can serve in a nearby area for trucking, for processing, for sourcing, for

00:40:24.440 warehousing, it's an advantage. So we're always going to pay a little more than our American

00:40:29.300 neighbors, I think, to a degree, because we just don't have that large population density. But we

00:40:33.540 want to keep it as reasonable as we can. That's the thing. Something else he mentioned at the

00:40:41.920 end, which was kind of scary. If people want to look at a lot of history, the price shocks that

00:40:45.880 really hit the 70s, and it was during the Yom Kippur War in Israel, which we're in a very similar 0.96

00:40:51.720 situation now, except back then it was Egypt and Syria being a pain in the butt rather than 0.77

00:40:58.200 Gaza. But the war went on, it shot the price though, because other countries were involved, 0.96

00:41:04.740 it shot the price of oil through the roof. That was the catalyst that actually led to the National

00:41:08.520 Energy Program, gave Trudeau Sr. the excuse to try and screw Alberta with that. So we get

00:41:14.360 circumstances beyond our control that affect our prices here, whether we like it or not.

00:41:21.720 And we always want to prepare for those.

00:41:23.420 I guess you still want to keep your base costs as low as you can so that if something like that happens, it's still not going to hit you any harder than it has to.

00:41:31.920 And food, I guess the two words, you know, there's a few words.

00:41:35.980 We want affordability.

00:41:37.020 You want stability.

00:41:38.020 You want to make sure it's available.

00:41:39.200 I mean, food shortages.

00:41:40.320 Don't forget the supply chain breaks and things that happened before.

00:41:42.720 Empty shelves.

00:41:43.360 That's kind of freaky to see that happening.

00:41:45.940 You know, you want that stability and you want reliability, right?

00:41:49.400 You know, you want it to be there.

00:41:50.660 and it's just an ongoing thing but we politicize it when we're demonizing the heads of the

00:41:57.780 grocers out there or when we're also going after you know even going after Trudeau hey I'm no

00:42:04.340 friend or fan is by any stretch of the imagination but he's not necessarily directly responsible for

00:42:10.460 the price of groceries that are getting on my table day by day though there are better things

00:42:14.160 he could certainly be doing for the Canadian economy to help with it so let's get on to Trudeau

00:42:19.100 I haven't talked enough about him yet today.

00:42:21.020 Everybody wants to hear about Justin, right? 0.99

00:42:22.440 He's down in Jamaica tanning his pimply butt. 0.96

00:42:25.800 So whilst he's doing that, let's talk about what he's supposed to be doing up here. 0.96

00:42:29.620 The carbon tax, you know, this is still there.

00:42:32.140 Peter LaFontaine bringing up the carbon tax hit everything that moves in Canada.

00:42:35.360 And it's true. 0.56

00:42:36.180 And that's what we're talking about energy costs.

00:42:37.500 And then when you put a carbon tax on top of that energy, everything goes up.

00:42:41.000 It's a tax on everything.

00:42:42.720 It's like a GST.

00:42:44.260 Even if it's kind of hidden and indirect, it costs us.

00:42:47.400 And Trudeau had to admit it. He wouldn't say it outright. He's a mealy-mouthed, disingenuous man with no understanding of economics. But his policies admitted it when we see now from Blacklock's reporter, they came out with some records from the Privy Council showing that the federal researchers were researching and polling using our tax dollars.

00:43:08.540 And they realized in Atlantic Canada, which had been sort of exempt from carbon tax pressures and expense for most of the time it was there, once they started having to pay the bill, oh, bye, I'm nuts into that, suddenly they switched their allegiance from the Liberals to the Conservatives.

00:43:24.580 Up to 24 Liberal seats were going to be lost.

00:43:26.680 So what does Trudeau do?

00:43:28.160 He carves them an exemption.

00:43:30.820 And it just completely undercut what that tax is.

00:43:34.160 Because if you really believe the tax is saving the world, then you shouldn't be able to say, well, yeah, it's saving the world, but we can make an exception over here or over here.

00:43:41.820 And if it's supposedly revenue neutral, then it shouldn't be hurting you having it hitting people in the maritimes.

00:43:49.880 They knew it was going to hit them.

00:43:51.140 It was going to hit the wallet.

00:43:52.040 It's a tax.

00:43:52.600 It's an expense.

00:43:53.240 It costs you on every front. 0.99

00:43:55.360 And Trudeau just made himself look, yeah, and he's still got room to go down, obviously, made himself look dumber. 0.99

00:43:59.400 And he already looked pretty darn dumb by backtracking is trying his carve out. 0.98

00:44:03.980 And then, of course, infuriating the rest of the nation when he, you know, of course, gives exemptions to one part, but not to the other. 0.94

00:44:10.980 Because we know it just means we have to pay all the more.

00:44:14.540 Here's another beauty that's certain to resonate with Canadians and be popular.

00:44:18.500 I see that cabinet yesterday, yeah, they said they're going to waive immigration rules for up to, and I don't believe them with much of anything, up to 1,000 Gazans to come into Canada and immigrate.

00:44:31.500 Because the 1.4 million that we can't sustain right now isn't enough.

00:44:35.060 Let's bring in 1,000 people from one of the most volatile places on the planet, and let's not pretend that a lot of those Gazans weren't supporting Hamas. 0.98

00:44:43.980 OK, Hamas didn't come out of a vacuum. People housed them. People fed them. People turned their heads when the missiles were being launched. People turned their heads when the hostages were being taken into the tunnels. These people are the people that Justin wants to bring here, as if we don't have enough of those lunatics blocking our roads, intimidating people in malls and calling out for the death of all Jews. And that's what they call. They aren't pro-Palestine protests. They aren't. They're pro-Hamas and they're anti-Jew. Let's quit talking around circles. 0.61

00:45:11.300 but hey, let's have a thousand more in Canada

00:45:13.280 because that can only make it better, right?

00:45:16.360 You know, no other country wants them.

00:45:19.400 You know, there's more than one border with Gaza.

00:45:23.560 Egypt is on the south end.

00:45:25.880 They don't open it either.

00:45:26.960 Why does Israel get all the blame?

00:45:28.760 One of the neighbors also will not deal with them.

00:45:31.920 Why? Let's talk about that.

00:45:33.780 It's not our issue in Canada.

00:45:36.080 We've got a lot of issues in Canada already to deal with.

00:45:38.620 But oh, thank you, Justin.

00:45:39.580 And let's bring 1,000 people from Gaza in and just see how that fits in our culturally diverse soup.

00:45:47.340 And, yeah, I can see nothing but good times coming out of this.

00:45:51.520 Really, you guys, really.

00:45:53.820 All right.

00:45:54.680 Well, there's lots to cover, and there's going to be lots more, guys.

00:45:57.680 You know, we're going to be on the pipeline a little later.

00:45:59.640 We're going to cover a few more things and dissect them with our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford, and other special guests going on as well.

00:46:07.740 And we've got lots of other special things happening at the Western Standard.

00:46:10.660 I'm going to bring somebody in to cap off the show with an announcement

00:46:14.560 and covering some things on a special that's coming up here in Calgary.

00:46:18.740 And that's Mr. Finkbeiner with The Draw.

00:46:23.320 Hey, James.

00:46:24.680 Hey, how are you, Corey?

00:46:26.180 Good, good, actually.

00:46:27.320 Yeah, I missed a week.

00:46:28.400 You know, I was missing getting out here and venting.

00:46:30.640 Poor Jane had to put up with a lot. 1.00

00:46:33.080 Just walking around your house doing your show all by yourself, eh?

00:46:35.800 That's right.

00:46:36.480 Yelling at the walls and the dunes.

00:46:37.740 well i uh i shut off twitter notifications before i went on holidays and i didn't turn

00:46:44.400 them back on until i got into the office so uh my blood pressure is actually fairly low

00:46:49.060 and uh we're kicking off the new year with a giveaway so it's been uh it's been a nice

00:46:54.420 couple of days to be back at work around here right on well at least be taking while you got

00:46:59.740 Perfect. I've got this ready to go. So we can have two screens going with the draw. So I've

00:47:08.440 got a random number generator going here on another monitor, but we're going to draw some

00:47:12.880 numbers. And these first tickets that we're going to give away are for regular tickets for the

00:47:18.780 Calgary event. The Calgary event is with Tucker Carlson, Premier Danielle Smith, and that's going

00:47:25.320 be moderated by brett wilson uh so let me just throw this first ticket number in here now

00:47:31.720 and uh that's number 53 and our first winner is uh ed whitman

00:47:41.160 and oh let me see here uh i just gotta switch this there there we go i had the wrong tab up

00:47:50.120 I swear, I'm paying attention.

00:47:52.520 All right.

00:47:53.000 The next number here is ticket number 76.

00:48:00.640 Terry Chisminsky.

00:48:04.640 I butchered that.

00:48:05.600 I'm sorry.

00:48:08.460 And next ticket winner is 74, Bernadette McCaff.

00:48:16.280 and our last one our vip winners so the vip winners will get a vip meet and greet and a

00:48:24.580 photo with uh tucker carlson at the event and this one is for calgary and the winner is ticket

00:48:31.900 number 146 david edmunds so all of those winners for the calgary event will be contacted by phone

00:48:39.980 and email at some point today.

00:48:43.020 We are just going to go through this list when we're done here

00:48:46.340 and get a hold of everybody.

00:48:49.840 Up next, we have the Edmonton draw.

00:48:52.900 We actually got pretty lucky.

00:48:55.160 We ended up getting extra packages of tickets for Edmonton.

00:48:59.280 I just looked, and it looks like the tickets are still selling

00:49:02.760 for $92 a piece.

00:49:04.120 So it's awesome that we were able to be able to give this many tickets

00:49:09.160 away to our members our first winner here is uh taryn ways laco all the ukrainians are winning

00:49:20.020 today well you're at edmonton man uh it's true uh our next winner is 16 uh gordon tabachnik

00:49:32.540 you know three of my best friends are ukrainian you think i'd be able to pronounce a ukrainian

00:49:41.320 last name by now but apparently not yeah up next we have conan akert there we go that's an easy one

00:49:51.720 And next, Neil Suchuk.

00:49:58.720 And the next one, Kevin Hampton.

00:50:04.940 And let me just see here.

00:50:08.400 We are 44, Joan Frederick.

00:50:14.640 And number 28, Joyce Gannon.

00:50:19.640 and our last vip winner uh edmonton of course is a uh beat and greet with tucker carlson this event

00:50:28.480 will be with tucker carlson conrad black and rex murphy uh i'm super excited for this one i'm a

00:50:34.300 huge fan of rex i'm trying to convince derek to let me go but uh you know road trips and let it

00:50:41.420 letting letting me out of the office that just never happens but uh our our vip package winner

00:50:47.760 for Edmonton it is ticket 138 uh Dale Baker so congratulations to all those winners thank you

00:50:57.780 guys very much for your support we appreciate you being members with the Western Standard

00:51:01.380 uh we're excited that this year we're going to be able to do lots of different giveaways

00:51:05.720 and uh we're excited that this is the first one such a big uh two big events for the province

00:51:11.120 right on well thanks James yeah and this is just to remind everybody yeah there's more than just

00:51:15.860 getting access to all those columns and articles, uh, on there being a Western standard member.

00:51:19.900 We do these promotions and these special sorts of access. Cause we know these things are going

00:51:23.540 to be sold out. So right on. Congratulations folks. And, uh, thanks James. Awesome. Thanks

00:51:30.220 a lot, Corey. Have a good afternoon. All right. Thanks. And for any of the rest of you still

00:51:34.020 hanging in there, go on, get on, subscribe, get onto those next deals. Come on and see if you can

00:51:37.920 win the next draw. Maybe who knows what we'll put away next. There's going to be lots of events and

00:51:42.520 things happening this year so thanks for tuning in with us today guys and uh yeah come in next

00:51:47.760 week at this time and we'll do it all again with a new guest and a whole new bunch of stuff for me

00:51:51.920 to complain about

00:52:12.520 I still can't see rumble, I guess.

00:52:26.300 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:52:28.520 Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:52:32.880 These guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:52:40.300 and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong

00:52:45.460 people. To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

Western Standard - January 04, 2024

CMS： Danielle Smith could change healthcare across the country

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