Western Standard - CMS： ESG is finally going into the corporate dustbin where it belongs

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. This is my weekly rant and rave and guest interview

00:00:37.080 show with the Western Standard. We run live every Wednesday and then it runs on a number

00:00:42.000 of different channels throughout Canada, higher up on the dial there, including the Cowboy Network

00:00:47.860 and Wild TV and some other areas. So thank you for taking some time out in a summer day to

00:00:53.320 check out what's going on and there is a lot going on today. I got a guest coming on,

00:00:57.500 is author Mark Milkey of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. He's going to talk about

00:01:03.040 Justin Trudeau and, you know, quite a difference between Justin Trudeau and his father, Pierre

00:01:07.800 Trudeau, with their views on individual liberty and the importance of it. Of course, Justin's

00:01:13.000 not one for much nuanced political thought or philosophy, so not too shocking. There's

00:01:17.940 quite a difference between the two with how they approach things. As well, of course,

00:01:22.620 lots of news and other such good stuff. So I'm going to get started with talking about something

00:01:28.500 kind of surprised me. I guess it shouldn't. And that's with ESG. You know, we hear about ESG a

00:01:34.720 lot in the news and there's been a lot of talk about it. And it sounds like finally it's this,

00:01:40.520 this, it's an investment fad and it's coming to an end. The whole concept of ESG, I mean,

00:01:45.820 it was flawed from the beginning. So ESG, if people aren't familiar with it, stands for

00:01:49.900 environmental, social, and governance, and it's been pushed by extreme woke activists for years.

00:01:56.380 It's some of a catch-all term, and they use it to try and pressure corporations into prioritizing

00:02:01.500 social activism over actually pursuing a profit for shareholders. The term ESG originated from

00:02:07.560 a 2004 United Nations report. Yeah, the UN. Shocking, isn't it? But it was claiming companies

00:02:12.220 should set aside a profit focus, and if they just took on enough environmental and social justice

00:02:17.100 work it would be beneficial to the public and to the companies themselves now the concept is utter 0.88

00:02:22.620 pie-in-the-sky bunk and despite nearly two f decades of effort on this crap it's finally

00:02:27.900 failed i mean corporations only exist for one thing and that's to make a return for the shareholders 0.64

00:02:33.260 they're not charities nor should they be expected to be i mean while good corporate citizenship can

00:02:38.220 aid with a company's public reputation and help build brand loyalty esg goes well beyond that

00:02:43.820 with its demands on corporations profit is supposed to be considered a secondary goal to esg

00:02:49.660 now the esg movement i mean is rather insidious and compelling it's really backdoor socialism

00:02:54.220 rather than trying to directly convince companies to embrace woke policies that run counters to the

00:02:58.940 company's own objectives they would target instead things like large asset asset management companies

00:03:04.540 and get them to push the esg basically saying don't invest in it unless they have a high esg score

00:03:09.820 Now, BlackRock is a company you've probably heard of now and then,

00:03:13.420 and it was a leader in pushing ESG upon companies.

00:03:16.800 It was kind of thought that even if consumers don't really care about ESG targets,

00:03:20.220 the companies would embrace ESG policies if they were strangled from incoming investment

00:03:24.740 by these management, you know, companies.

00:03:27.900 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the name sort of works, doesn't it, spearheaded such efforts.

00:03:33.460 Now, Fink now is distancing himself from the entire ESG movement.

00:03:36.000 just whoa okay okay no that's enough of that we're not gonna do this anymore yeah but he did a lot of

00:03:40.400 damage on the way up because shareholders will only put up with so much they want to return on

00:03:44.800 any investments they entrusted to these asset managers and they couldn't care less if the

00:03:49.400 company has unisex washrooms or sets its emission targets above and beyond those required by

00:03:54.180 legislation they're demanding investments in profitable companies rather than woke ones

00:04:00.000 Most companies can't be both.

00:04:02.320 Retailers, I mean, they can't pay the insane living wages demands being made by woke people 0.93

00:04:07.620 while maintaining competitive pricing, of course,

00:04:10.100 because then they scream about the inflation when the costs go up.

00:04:12.660 And then, of course, adding environmental regulations doesn't win any government love

00:04:16.220 because the governments just keep piling on new regulations on top of the old ones.

00:04:20.440 Appeasing the woke in the name of ESG has only managed to make profits smaller. 0.94

00:04:24.920 Now, some ESG-inspired idiocy will go down in business history, 0.97

00:04:28.340 such as the Budweiser debacle with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney. 0.99

00:04:32.000 Even a first-year marketing student should have seen the consequences coming

00:04:35.860 when Budweiser decided to take on the flamboyant Mulvaney as a brand ambassador.

00:04:41.200 Budweiser had over a century of carefully cultivated market development under its belt.

00:04:46.260 The brand loyalty for Budweiser was the envy of the very competitive beer industry,

00:04:51.080 and it was shattered by this bizarre choice to go down the trans activist rabbit hole.

00:04:55.940 How could somebody have thought for a moment that a market demographic made up predominantly of

00:05:00.020 cowboys and blue-collar workers would want their favorite beer associated with a colorful trans

00:05:04.400 activist? It's not a question of tolerance. It's just knowing your market. The thing is,

00:05:09.420 the luminary who came up with this idea to bring Mulvaney on as a brand ambassador wasn't thinking

00:05:13.380 of reality. She was wrapped up in the mythical world of ESG. It might take a generation for

00:05:19.160 Budweiser sales to recover to where they were only last year. Nobody chooses their consumer products

00:05:24.740 based on ESG scores.

00:05:26.740 Investors don't pick investment vehicles

00:05:29.060 based on ESG scores either.

00:05:31.160 The reality is finally coming home to roost.

00:05:33.820 And as the old saying goes,

00:05:35.200 go woke, go broke.

00:05:36.160 And it's proving accurate. 0.92

00:05:37.780 Silicon Valley Bank, they went broke

00:05:39.640 and they went whole hog with ESG.

00:05:41.960 In his 2022 ESG report, yeah, an ESG report,

00:05:45.480 the company said it seeks directors on its board

00:05:47.460 with knowledge of or experience

00:05:49.040 with key risk oversight and risk management functions

00:05:51.480 to help oversee the dynamic risks we face.

00:05:54.300 Yeah, Trudeau-style word salad, ESG garbage, and it led to the collapse of the bank.

00:05:59.740 The list of ESG failures is growing, while ESG language, though, is finally disappearing from corporate boardrooms. 0.96

00:06:05.640 One of the dumbest and most expensive social trends in human history is finally just coming on.

00:06:12.580 Unfortunately, though, as with supporters of communism, the supporters of ESG just think, 0.75

00:06:16.180 it hasn't been done right yet.

00:06:17.480 They will rebrand the concept and try and push it through another way.

00:06:20.700 In the end, though, money talks and ESG walks.

00:06:25.340 So let's celebrate at least the end of this incarnation of backdoor socialism, guys.

00:06:30.320 ESG is a thing of the past, and, well, let's see what they turn the next efforts into.

00:06:35.580 All right, that's what got me started today.

00:06:37.540 Let's get on and see what else is happening out there in the news and check in with Dave Naylor in our newsroom there.

00:06:42.020 Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:06:45.100 It's going great, Corey. How are you?

00:06:47.440 Yeah, pretty good. It's nice out.

00:06:48.520 it is it's absolutely beautiful day and uh environment canada's issued a heat warning

00:06:54.560 for calgary so so that's all good uh so we're talking earlier i understand you now

00:06:59.960 fool foolproof plan on protecting your bees from bears

00:07:05.960 there's that beautiful video i mean the inspiration you can find online for those 0.55

00:07:13.980 don't know i keep bees and yes a pair wiped out my bees last year i've been inspired by this guy

00:07:28.060 look at that that's just kind of nightmares no i am going to

00:07:35.580 go hit home depot or one of those stores maybe uh walmart wherever get those

00:07:39.580 cheap motion activated weird halloween decorations and i am going to surround my beehive with those

00:07:43.980 uh this fall and uh you know it should give the bears nightmares and maybe even any inquisitive

00:07:49.380 neighbors might stay away that's true but you think it's going to scare a one-time grizzly

00:07:53.520 bear do you well it's worth a try i'm trying every way to stop that thing rather than shooting it

00:07:59.860 that's true it's got any canada day plans cory you're going to have a barbecue

00:08:03.720 no no i'll be taking it pretty easy for canada day i think i think i got to run a stampede

00:08:09.380 actually jane's got some sort of barn quilt thing she's got to put up down there oh that's right 0.54

00:08:13.260 Well, if you were planning on hosting a barbecue, you better, you haven't bought your meat yet.

00:08:17.520 You better get ready to dig deep in your wallet because beef prices are set to soar.

00:08:23.680 That's our top story on the website at the moment.

00:08:26.320 Corey, our agriculture energy business expert, Sean Polzer, says the number of cows in Canada is down to levels not seen since the 1990s.

00:08:38.860 And that's why the price of your Canada Day steak is going to send shockwaves through your wallet.

00:08:47.140 Other stuff we've got going on.

00:08:49.220 We've got a story on how the Saskatchewan government hired an advertising agency to encourage people to get vaccinated during COVID.

00:08:57.220 And the agency admits they used fear tactics and scare tactics to try and convince people in Saskatchewan to get jabbed.

00:09:06.560 Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean today announced that last month Alberta oil production increased 4%.

00:09:15.500 It's good for the provincial treasury.

00:09:18.820 Also means, interestingly, that Alberta itself was the fourth biggest oil producer in the entire world last month.

00:09:26.720 We've got a story from Barry Cooper, the esteemed Dr. Barry Cooper,

00:09:31.920 on the looming threat of laws coming in where it will make it illegal to be a residential school

00:09:38.500 denier. And a very disturbing story this morning from Jonathan Bradley, our reporter.

00:09:47.200 The ICE team investigators launched a massive three-month investigation where they arrested

00:09:53.000 eight Calgary men, sorry, seven Calgary men and one other man from southern Alberta.

00:09:58.580 One million pictures of child porn. 1.00

00:10:03.760 It's just sickening, Corey, just absolutely sickening. 0.98

00:10:07.400 So that's the stuff we've got at the moment.

00:10:10.020 You can read about NASA's plan to start mining on the moon.

00:10:15.120 Apparently, they want more than cheese out of there. 0.91

00:10:18.000 And even though, you know, everybody or Canada is backing away from making investments in the oil industry,

00:10:27.580 the government of Norway announced 18 billion in new projects. So Canada's going one way,

00:10:34.460 Norway's going another, and I think I'd rather be on the Norway train, Corey.

00:10:39.420 I hear you there. I mean, they got a terrible taste in food, but they're at least pragmatic

00:10:42.840 with their energy resources. That's right. And the Heritage Savings Trust Fund that

00:10:47.120 dwarfs ours. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thanks for the update, Dave. Some good news and

00:10:54.180 bad news and that whole mix there. I guess it's

00:10:56.200 good that they caught those sick monsters 1.00

00:10:58.400 with the child porn stuff, but it's just sad 0.97

00:11:00.160 that we've got to keep hearing those reports of it.

00:11:02.400 Yeah, they come out way

00:11:04.260 too often. It's

00:11:05.220 unbelievable.

00:11:08.100 Alright, well thanks and I'll

00:11:10.220 check in with you after the show, Dave.

00:11:12.360 Thanks, Corey.

00:11:14.220 That is our news editor, Dave

00:11:16.260 Naylor. Yes, he's in there in that

00:11:18.140 newsroom and curating

00:11:20.140 and making sure all those good, interesting

00:11:22.520 and important stories get up there on the Western Standard site. This is where I nag you to help us

00:11:26.840 pay the bills. Guys, the reason we can do it is that we have subscribers. $9.99 a month, $100 a

00:11:33.260 year. You can get full unfettered access to all of those stories past the paywall, and it helps

00:11:38.660 fund things like this show, those stories, having reporters all over the place. So, you know, if you

00:11:44.400 haven't subscribed yet, guys, get on there and do it. And if you have already, thank you. I mean,

00:11:49.380 know, we really do appreciate it. This is how we're going to beat the subsidy wars and stuff's

00:11:54.440 going on out there. So yeah, let's see what this, this thing with the drilling on, you know, on the

00:12:03.540 moon. I noticed somebody else asking about a timeline on that one of the commenters. Yeah,

00:12:07.960 and that's, they're looking, I guess a rig is going to test the soil on the Artemis mission

00:12:12.660 of 2024. So not too, too far ahead. But I mean, we'll see how long it is before they get to the

00:12:17.860 point where anything looks financially viable to actually dig way the heck up there. But who knows,

00:12:24.420 it's interesting stuff. It's certainly science fiction sort of thing. We talk about a last

00:12:28.560 frontier for us to get into. What I'm wondering though, of course, is how long is it going to

00:12:32.820 take before environmentalists lose it and say we have to leave the moon pristine because there

00:12:37.260 aren't an infinite number of them in the rest of the universe out there. So if we don't do that,

00:12:41.740 you know, the world will end. What if we change the climate on the moon? I mean, that would be

00:12:45.500 tragic, wouldn't it? Could you imagine a heat wave on the moon or a cold snap? I mean,

00:12:50.220 all the moon life would be wiped out. Oh, it would be terrible. So don't worry, we can be assured.

00:12:55.420 If somebody's got something in mind that's innovative, interesting, and has potential,

00:13:00.540 somebody's going to oppose it. And chances are, somebody in Canada will support that.

00:13:06.240 You know, they think Dave was talking about. So Norway, yeah, Norway has been expanding its North 0.63

00:13:11.020 sea work. People keep pointing to them as this great example as a world citizen and an energy

00:13:16.900 producer and things like that. Well, that's fine. But Canada, we're punching ourselves in the knackers.

00:13:22.260 We're shutting in our stuff. It sounds like Alberta increased its oil production and that's

00:13:26.000 great, but that's despite the efforts of the federal government. It's despite Trudeau trying

00:13:32.080 his hardest to make energy as unviable as possible in Canada. Meanwhile, Norway is smart enough to

00:13:39.240 say, hey, world demand is going up. It's growing. People want oil and gas, whether they like it or

00:13:45.240 not. It's like the ESG thing. You can talk and virtue signal all you want. When it comes to

00:13:49.940 actually hitting the light switch and having the lights come on, that's all that matters in the

00:13:53.420 end. And Norway realizes that. You know, people talk about that massive fund that Norway has.

00:13:58.380 Why didn't Alberta do that? Well, because Norway doesn't have Quebec. It's a big difference. It's

00:14:02.560 a big anchor hanging around the neck of Alberta. We've had to pay, of course, billions and billions

00:14:07.860 and equalization. Anytime we make money, we get it drained out of us to keep feeding our eastern

00:14:15.160 parasitic cousins there. So, you know, it's not fair to make a direct comparison between Norway's

00:14:21.900 resource management strategies and Alberta's. They're completely different. And they have

00:14:27.300 different challenges ahead of them. Either way, hopefully, maybe, you know, with the pragmatism,

00:14:31.360 the expansion coming from Norway with expanding their conventional energy exploration might

00:14:36.320 inspire some of our decision makers in Canada realize, yes, we're getting left behind. We've

00:14:41.480 got to, you know, sure, eventually, eventually, maybe in a century, oil and gas will no longer

00:14:46.960 be used. But that just tells us, well, let's get it out and use it while we can then. And while

00:14:50.740 it's viable. So maybe that'll sink in with a few folks. Hard to say, though, because the folks in

00:14:55.640 charge aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. So let's get on to talking about the head knife

00:15:01.500 in the drawer in Ottawa, and that's Justin Trudeau. And author Mark Mielke has written a

00:15:06.540 column recently on some of the differences between the junior Trudeau and the senior Trudeau

00:15:11.840 with their attitudes when it comes to individual liberties. So let's bring in Mark. Hey, Mark,

00:15:17.140 how's it going? I'm great, Corey. Thanks for having me on. Happy Almost Canada Day.

00:15:22.000 It's almost there. And yeah, it's kind of a good time to talk about this. And it kind of

00:15:26.420 ties into your your last book there in a sense i mean you know identity and individual rights

00:15:33.140 things like that i mean they aren't mutually exclusive we can respect the individual while

00:15:37.460 still having a collective identity right well the collective it's important to make distinctions

00:15:43.220 and in the 1867 project i quote pierre trudeau of all people on these distinctions um collective

00:15:49.380 action you know i'm an individual guy you know rights kind of guy but obviously there's a point

00:15:54.660 for the collective if you mean government at some point um ostensibly to do things that as individuals

00:16:00.420 or you know private businesses can't be done right um i mean hard only hardcore libertarians think

00:16:05.940 you know maybe the trans canada should be privatized or something in the highway

00:16:09.620 but most people grasp or get that you know there's a need for government you know you need government

00:16:14.020 for courts you need governments for armies uh you know to fight the nazis in the 1940s that sort of

00:16:19.220 thing um so but the point is the collective exists um for that but they have to treat us all equally

00:16:26.900 the government has to treat us all equally as individuals that's the beauty of 500 years of

00:16:31.380 enlightenment thought and especially in the anglosphere where he said the individual is worth

00:16:35.780 something treat the individual equally morally equal which means what which means the state

00:16:40.340 shouldn't be saying to me or you you're going to be treated differently because of your skin color

00:16:45.140 your ethnicity, where you were born, your gender. Now, it took a long time to get there,

00:16:50.020 probably till the 1950s and 1960s, really, in parts of the world, or at least in the Western

00:16:55.200 world, rather, especially in the United States. Canada got there before that. But we got there,

00:17:00.380 and it's crystallized in Martin Luther King's famous 1963 speech, that he wanted to see a world,

00:17:06.180 in the case of his country, where his children would be judged on the content of their character,

00:17:10.660 not the color of their skin. It took a long time to get there. We have reversed and we shouldn't 0.86

00:17:16.560 have. So people are, again, being treated as something other than individuals in law and

00:17:20.440 policy. But that's a long way of saying, yeah, look, the collective exists. That's government

00:17:24.920 in essence. But it shouldn't be allowed to take a whack at you or me or anyone else based on

00:17:31.380 irrelevant characteristics. Yeah, well, and a totally different philosophy. I mean, aside from

00:17:37.500 the name Trudeau, and I guess the amount of loathing Western Canada has for him, Justin Trudeau is

00:17:42.160 quite different from his father. I mean, Pierre Trudeau, among his many flaws or whatnot, though,

00:17:47.700 he's still a classic liberal in a number of ways, like things such as getting government out of the

00:17:52.680 bedrooms of the nation. That was, I think, some fine work on his part. I mean, to give a little

00:17:55.880 credit we're doing, I don't give a lot to Trudeau's, but that was important. I was recognized

00:17:59.940 these are adults, these are individuals, their rights are paramount, and it's not our place to

00:18:04.180 to regulate that. Whereas Justin Trudeau seems to be getting increasingly intrusive into the

00:18:10.040 lives of individuals and telling us how we're supposed to live.

00:18:13.260 Right. Look, Pierre Trudeau was wrong in many things. And, you know, to be fair to the historical

00:18:18.920 record, he probably introduced a little bit of, you know, collective, you know, group rights type

00:18:23.400 thinking, you know, in part in the constitution because of the affirmative action clause or,

00:18:27.640 you know, the equity clause as people call it. I call it the racial and, you know, gender

00:18:31.980 discrimination clause. But, you know, Pierre Trudeau at least would argue he was consistent

00:18:37.100 when it came to Quebec and ethnic collective rights, right, that the French could discriminate

00:18:42.560 against the English. And it's why he was such a fervent opposition, you know, oppositional figure,

00:18:47.800 you know, to Quebec ethno-nationalism. But you're right, Justin Trudeau has almost none of that,

00:18:54.480 as far as I can tell. He really believes that Canada is some sort of weird post-national state

00:18:59.480 where you don't have any core convictions. And also that it's the government's role to

00:19:03.840 discriminate against people based on the fact that, you know, if you measure different groups,

00:19:09.020 they have different outcomes. But that's silly. You know, the best performing cohorts in Canada 0.95

00:19:13.960 are, you know, usually from East Asia, or if you're, you know, an Indian extraction,

00:19:20.180 your ancestors, and I mean, as in India in India, not indigenous. And there are reasons for that, 1.00

00:19:26.300 higher education levels, career choices, that sort of thing. You have different outcomes between

00:19:31.980 different groups because different choices, different educational levels, different geography,

00:19:36.000 different histories. Very little of it has to do with racism these days. But Justin Trudeau

00:19:40.840 wants to micromanage outcomes to make us all equal, so to speak. That's silly. As the famous 0.97

00:19:47.280 American economist Thomas Sowell once said, the same people in a family, brothers and sisters,

00:19:53.480 who grow up will have vastly different outcomes, even though they have the same environment.

00:19:57.520 You can't always blame different outcomes on racism, but that's what's driving a lot

00:20:01.740 of this these days.

00:20:04.020 And again, Justin Trudeau, unlike his father, Pierre Trudeau, Trudeau understood that it's

00:20:09.920 very dangerous to give collectives power.

00:20:12.660 So you give a collective power based on its religion or language or ethnicity to lord

00:20:17.820 it over another collective.

00:20:18.820 Again, the best example in Canada is what French ethno-nationalists do to minorities, 1.00

00:20:23.120 including English. Well, that's dangerous. It's a liberal, but it's also dangerous because people

00:20:29.840 eventually clash over such things. Well, when we talk about, I guess, just, I mean, unity,

00:20:36.560 it's a term we hear a lot all the time, but we seem to be, I think, I see more signs of regionalism

00:20:42.720 and regional division and even division within the regions now that identity politics are really

00:20:47.960 sinking in. The country is actually more fractured than ever, rather than working in a common

00:20:53.680 direction. It is. Maybe provincial divisions have always been there, right? The West, you know,

00:21:02.020 Quebec, Atlanta, Canada. I grew up in British Columbia, and the Charlottetown Accord was on

00:21:06.780 that referendum in 1992. I can tell you most British Columbians, even more than Albertans,

00:21:11.200 voted against it because they didn't like the idea of Quebec having special status, which it's got

00:21:17.220 all but a name now. So the divisions, I think, have been there, but they've exacerbated. And now

00:21:25.400 the federal government and others have brought in divisions based on color, based on ethnicity,

00:21:29.900 based on gender. This is the wrong direction to go. What's a more positive way to think about 1.00

00:21:37.040 Canada on Canada? Or what's a better way to go? Well, it's the old fashioned, what is known as

00:21:42.440 classical liberal but today might be considered small c conservative ideas that you don't that

00:21:47.880 you celebrate people based on who they are as an individual you don't discriminate discriminate

00:21:52.600 against someone based on irrelevant characteristics and what that means is you celebrate the good

00:21:57.400 ideas out there um you know the the rights of the individual i mean classical liberalism that came

00:22:04.040 from john stuart mill mary wollstonecraft and the rights of women um can be can be adopted by anyone

00:22:09.400 these days we see it in hong kong when hong kongers protest against beijing and the crackdowns in

00:22:15.160 hong kong over the last several years you would often see them raising the british flag why they

00:22:20.200 understood that the british inheritance for example is about the rights of the individual

00:22:24.840 about capitalism about the rule of law these are ideas and they're good ideas anybody can

00:22:29.080 unite around those and we should there's bad ideas that people can unite around and they have in

00:22:33.560 history there's bad ways to unite and it's you know only my religion or my skin color or what

00:22:39.000 have you and that's rife throughout history which is why we shouldn't repeat it but for sure

00:22:43.960 canadians can and should unite around laudable ideas that you know various founders had a glimpse

00:22:50.680 of and pushed to some degree but certainly in the 20th century starting in the 1950s canadians

00:22:57.000 were supposed to be united around the idea of the equality of the individual um and other other

00:23:02.040 beneficial aspects of modern nation state capitalism and the rest of that's what we should

00:23:07.160 actually unite around these days great ideas not identities well yeah and we seem to have some some

00:23:12.920 i guess culture wars going on in in canada i mean we've seen some of that just recently in calgary

00:23:19.800 city hall didn't understand why a minor move such as getting rid of fireworks blew up the way

00:23:24.600 it did but it was because of the reasoning for it i mean the bottom line is there are some people

00:23:28.920 who feel that canada day is supposed to be a day where we look at our shoes and shame it's supposed

00:23:33.960 to be when we're supposed to dwell on the negatives that happened historically within

00:23:37.320 canada and there certainly have been some negatives rather than taking one day though

00:23:41.560 to say hey we can still celebrate the positives while acknowledging the negatives i mean they

00:23:47.080 treat it as if it's mutually exclusive and it's i think it's really making canadians depressed

00:23:52.360 about their own history well that's one of the things we tried to approach in the 1867 project

00:23:57.320 right the new book that you know i and 19 other people wrote we tried to give people a sense of

00:24:02.200 of Canadian history with nuance, with balance, with informed history, and also to kind of change

00:24:08.080 the way some people view Canadian history. I think the majority of Canadians think we should feel

00:24:12.900 proud of Canada. They may not, you know, and they're not part of the minority of the chattering

00:24:18.260 classes that thinks we should cancel Canada. So I think most Canadians get that we should 1.00

00:24:22.320 celebrate or cherish Canada. They may not fully conceptually have worked out why or why the,

00:24:28.300 you know those who want to cancel canada are completely in the wrong and so what we're trying

00:24:32.380 to in the 1867 project is make people think um about canada and the best analogy i can give you

00:24:39.500 corey is canada and other civilizations are like oak trees right they take time to grow to build

00:24:45.580 they're not perfect um in history you've seen what i would the analogy would be diseased limbs women 0.99

00:24:51.500 didn't have the right to vote indigenous folk were denied the right to vote in the late 1800s by

00:24:55.980 parliament, finally given it in 1960 under John Diefenbaker, that parliament. Those were, you know,

00:25:02.320 the bad policies were diseased limbs that were right to be pruned. But that doesn't mean the

00:25:06.180 project was a bad idea, that the oak tree, which shelters people, is a bad idea. Canada, as an oak

00:25:12.720 tree, has sheltered tens of millions of people over the decades, unlike, say, Chairman Mao's China in

00:25:18.400 1960 in the Cultural Revolution. While Canada is giving the vote, rightly, to Indigenous Canadians, 1.00

00:25:24.240 Chairman Mao is persecuting his own people and causing mass starvation and famine because of his ideological Marxist beliefs.

00:25:32.800 So it's not just that no nation is perfect. That's obvious. No person is perfect.

00:25:37.600 The key question is, are certain minorities preferable? 0.90

00:25:40.940 When Hong Kongers celebrate the ideas of freedom, the rule of law, capitalism,

00:25:44.480 what they're saying is we prefer these to what's north of the border in Beijing.

00:25:48.240 And it doesn't matter if those ideas originated with John Stuart Mill and others in the 19th century in London, what matters is that they're a good idea and anybody can adopt them. You don't have to be, you know, a white person to be an Indian and say capitalism is better than socialism. So, you know, you can take some of what the British left behind and leave what you don't like. And that's part of Canada. And that's why we should celebrate Canada. We got some great ideas. We've had some great ideas for a very long time.

00:26:16.760 we abolished slavery before almost every country on earth. We shouldn't look down to our shoes and

00:26:21.480 be ashamed of that. Slavery was once considered normal. It wasn't, it was evil, but it was

00:26:26.440 considered normal. And Canada got rid of it almost before any other country on the planet. So rather

00:26:33.800 than be ashamed of sort of Canada's past, it's like, you have to ask the question, why did we

00:26:38.280 break away from that faulty thinking on slavery? Well, there were reasons for that, which I won't

00:26:43.960 won't go into now but they matter and that's why we should cherish Canada and not cancel it so

00:26:48.620 that's kind of which is the subtitle of the 1867 project yeah well and so with what we've got going

00:26:55.360 on out of Ottawa though and mixed signals almost coming from the prime minister but some of that

00:27:00.100 is I mean is it a matter of it being politically expedient for him to play these politics and

00:27:04.460 division and identity or or is he really got actually some inherent core feelings you know

00:27:09.700 that mold his ideology that way?

00:27:11.960 Because I mean, the first one perhaps can be changed

00:27:13.980 if it's entrenched in him.

00:27:15.660 He might continue like this for the rest of his term.

00:27:18.980 Well, maybe both.

00:27:20.260 It's part good politics, he thinks, right?

00:27:23.040 If he tells people that, look,

00:27:25.960 you know, privilege is a real thing,

00:27:28.020 white privilege is,

00:27:29.280 that it plays well in certain communities, not all.

00:27:32.100 So it's partly politics,

00:27:33.980 but it's partly probably sincere belief.

00:27:36.080 And I wouldn't rule that out either,

00:27:37.340 but he's mistaken.

00:27:38.060 Again, to quote Thomas Sowell, who I mentioned, I think, in my previous book, but also this one, the 1867 project, Thomas Sowell tells a great story of how, look, if you look in history, the Italians dominate the fishing fleets around the world.

00:27:52.380 The Swiss don't. Is it because the world was systemically biased against the Swiss? No.

00:27:57.320 The Italians have coastlines.

00:27:59.300 So you would expect over decades and centuries that the Italians to dominate the fishing industry around the world in the fleets.

00:28:05.740 It's the same with, you know, simplistic looks that say, again, outcomes and incomes today.

00:28:10.460 There's a reason why indigenous Canadians are lower than, say, other Canadians and why, you know, those of Japanese, Chinese or Taiwanese or Korean ancestry at the top of the income heap, because the latter are more educated. 0.98

00:28:24.800 The families are often more together, which matters to stability and other reasons.

00:28:29.500 So indigenous folk often are in rural locations, often on reserves, far from opportunities.

00:28:34.980 career-wise and education-wise.

00:28:37.100 So there's reasons, and I think Trudeau, Justin Trudeau,

00:28:41.240 simplistically looks at differences in outcomes and goes,

00:28:43.860 well, the reason must be due to racism.

00:28:46.200 Why would you be so mono-causal, Mr. Prime Minister?

00:28:49.560 Yeah, I mean, there can be, as you said,

00:28:51.380 a number of factors, I guess, before closing out,

00:28:53.800 I mean, it's a very interesting book,

00:28:55.220 The 1867 Project, and you've got a number of our authors

00:28:58.280 contributing towards that, so it's an anthology

00:29:00.840 or collection of essays, I guess.

00:29:03.100 Before I let you go then,

00:29:04.100 where can people find your book and get themselves a copy?

00:29:07.860 The 1867 Project is available on Amazon.

00:29:10.940 You can also check out aristotelfoundation.org.

00:29:13.240 We've got some excerpts and videos there,

00:29:15.300 but Amazon will have the 1867 Project.

00:29:18.960 Great, and just with the Aristotle Foundation,

00:29:22.880 so that's a think tank you're operating.

00:29:25.420 It's a new think tank that I and others have set up,

00:29:27.480 about 30 senior fellows, a great board of directors,

00:29:30.720 and we've already been publishing some material,

00:29:32.940 including the 1867 project,

00:29:34.680 but we set it up very simply to make people think.

00:29:38.180 Well, we need more people thinking, that's for sure.

00:29:40.740 There's never enough of that going on.

00:29:42.800 Well, thank you very much for joining us again today, Mark.

00:29:45.060 It's good to see you.

00:29:46.080 And I appreciate your work with the book and the foundation.

00:29:48.940 Is there anything you'd like to let the audience know

00:29:50.560 before I let you go there?

00:29:52.160 Sure, I think we need a return to reason,

00:29:54.260 sensible democracy and an old fashioned word, civilization.

00:29:57.460 And that's also what the Aristotle Foundation is about.

00:29:59.780 So buy the book, check out the website.

00:30:02.800 and I think you'll be intrigued by what you see.

00:30:05.540 So thank you.

00:30:07.420 Great, excellent.

00:30:08.720 So that was Mark Mielke with the, yes,

00:30:10.920 the 1867 Project.

00:30:12.480 He's been the author of a whole number of other books.

00:30:14.280 I still remember going way back to Tax Me, I'm Canadian.

00:30:17.320 I remember rushing out to grab that,

00:30:18.480 I believe it was in the 90s.

00:30:19.700 It was a great book

00:30:20.980 when he was with the Taxpayers Federation.

00:30:23.160 So check it out.

00:30:24.760 There's always a lot of common sense coming from Mr. Mielke.

00:30:27.420 So I'm sure we'll talk again soon, Mark.

00:30:29.640 Thank you.

00:30:30.720 Thanks. So yes, lots to think about, you know, and as I said, we need more thinkers, more people

00:30:36.880 putting their ideas in, and I like that statement he used, monocausal, you know, when you look at

00:30:42.620 a complicated issue, outcomes, things like that, and then, you know, with Trudeau just simplistically

00:30:47.500 points at one cause, it could be a contributing cause, but there's a lot more to it. So speaking

00:30:53.660 of thinking a little harder, it's something I need to do now and then as well. Something I want to

00:30:57.940 talk about before we go. I mean, I've still got a while before we go here, but just getting on to

00:31:03.180 where, you know, rant a little bit. It's a lesson I learned that I should know better just a couple

00:31:07.900 of days ago. So I was on Twitter as I commonly am. Those who know me, I spend a lot of time there.

00:31:13.580 I find things there. You get good breaking news things. There's not a great place for

00:31:16.940 nuanced discourse though and things, but you've got to watch it. You got to watch it on social

00:31:22.540 media, of course. And the way I've said it before a lot of times is we've got more access to

00:31:27.040 information than we've ever had in human history, but we've also got more access to BS than we've

00:31:32.300 ever had before. So I saw a tweet a couple of days ago, it came up, it showed, some of you

00:31:36.320 were on Twitter, might've seen it. This big husky balding man with, he's out there playing

00:31:43.260 rugby with a bunch of women and he's running. And this Twitter story was saying that apparently

00:31:48.840 during a rugby team, this guy's identifying as trans and he joined the woman's team and three

00:31:55.520 women got injured in a rugby match out in Ontario because this great big husky man was among them

00:32:01.200 playing. You know, rugby is a very physical game. This guy would have a great advantage over, of

00:32:05.880 course, people who are, you know, biologically women. And he was, you know, you can envision

00:32:09.600 them, him slamming them around like so many mannequins on the field or whatnot. But I was

00:32:15.140 pretty outraged. I mean, this is nuts. This is a, I was actually thinking I'm going to write a column

00:32:18.380 on this because there's so many lines getting crossed. It's just getting so ridiculous with 0.73

00:32:22.460 the trans world with, with pushing on at least the activist end of things to the point of actually 0.97

00:32:28.260 putting women at risk. Now, I mean, my thoughts were, this is a guy who is probably somebody just

00:32:34.360 wants to abuse women. I mean, he's not even trying. He doesn't even look like he's dressed

00:32:37.140 like a woman or anything like that. Once I started researching, I couldn't, it didn't happen. 0.99

00:32:43.280 It didn't happen. It's just a picture out of context with some text, but I cannot, if it did

00:32:49.580 happen. It's been scrubbed from history everywhere. There's no rugby league in Ontario saying this

00:32:55.440 happened. There's no team members saying this happened on either team. There's no news reports

00:33:00.180 that this happened. There's no eyewitness accounts saying that this happened. It didn't happen.

00:33:06.280 And I fell for it. I tweeted a couple of things with my usual rage tweeting, you know, saying how

00:33:10.820 ridiculous this is and how, you know, this is going to lead to broken necks with women. And 1.00

00:33:14.760 well, it won't because it didn't happen. Now, guys, it doesn't matter how outrageous things

00:33:21.060 are getting. We don't need to go to the juicy, smaller level of making up controversy. There's

00:33:26.760 enough real ones happening already. We discredit ourselves when we put stuff like that out there

00:33:34.420 on social media. And yeah, Tracy's saying it was on Sky News. Yeah, it's getting around,

00:33:40.980 but i can't find evidence of it i can't find it anywhere so if somebody can find real evidence

00:33:48.860 this is showing that's what i mean sky news this is going international i saw some heavy duty

00:33:53.220 twitter accounts also of media personalities were sharing this thing but it's to my knowledge it

00:33:59.160 didn't happen so this hurts things and it hurt i mean it's twitter i'm not gonna heavily research

00:34:07.800 everything I retweet or share or talk about. And the reason I dug deeper was because I was

00:34:11.660 considering writing a column on it. And then of course, when I'm going to write and commit this

00:34:15.620 to print or, you know, digital print through the Western standard or wherever else I might be

00:34:19.620 writing, I want to make sure I've got all the facts done. I want to find out where this happened,

00:34:23.420 who it was, what's the name of the people involved, all of that. None of it's out there, guys. Not a

00:34:28.120 bit of it. And it's not new, you know, stuff, like I said, being spread on social media. It happens

00:34:35.240 all the time. We can all fall for it now and then too. But the responsibility does land on us. See,

00:34:40.320 this is where I get worried too. This is part of the stuff that people like Trudeau used to say,

00:34:44.120 see, see, this is why we have to control conversation. This is why we have to control

00:34:48.360 social media. This is why we have to get in there. No, no, we have to be responsible for ourselves.

00:34:54.920 We have to fact check our own material. We have to look into this stuff. Because if we don't,

00:35:00.620 it invites them to take that on. And we know that they're only going to fact check

00:35:04.520 what's practical for them.

00:35:07.100 So either way, I'm just saying

00:35:08.560 I made a mistake, not in a

00:35:10.560 huge way, at least any more so than a lot of other

00:35:12.480 people. It was just Twitter. I retweeted it, made a couple

00:35:14.500 statements. I even got rid of the tweets afterwards.

00:35:16.420 There's no sense spreading more rage. We've got enough things to

00:35:18.480 be outraged with. I mean, part of the reality

00:35:20.720 too is things are so ridiculous and 0.85

00:35:22.480 outrageous with the extreme end 0.92

00:35:24.640 of the trans activism

00:35:26.000 that it was believable.

00:35:28.300 I mean, we see it with that Leah Thomas,

00:35:30.900 this, what, six-foot-two man

00:35:32.640 who's a swimmer who's just blowing women out of the water, you know, pun intended, on the swimming 0.97

00:35:38.540 races throughout the United States. I mean, again, not even trying. This isn't somebody who's

00:35:42.540 presenting as a woman. He's got all his junk and his parts intact, and he's just out there 1.00

00:35:47.720 defeating women in swimming pools. But as outrageous as that is, it doesn't put them at 0.98

00:35:52.460 physical risk. It's still ridiculous, and the guys shouldn't be in there. But the rugby story 0.91

00:35:59.500 was different. This was a person on a physical sport that theoretically would have really hurt

00:36:05.220 somebody if that was happening. But again, as I said, as far as I can find, it did not happen.

00:36:11.640 So we need to watch ourselves when we're on social media. That's all, you know, all of us,

00:36:17.280 including me. And I mean, there's, you know, real damage can get done. I have a fair-sized

00:36:22.060 Twitter following and sharing and tweeting and getting on with those things can spread a lot of

00:36:26.300 mistrust or anger into an area for something that didn't happen. And then it's just not good.

00:36:31.600 So speaking of the massive media in general, let's have a look at that. You know, Rodriguez

00:36:35.140 or a heritage minister federally, basically, it's looking like Facebook isn't going to back down,

00:36:40.600 guys. They're going to start blocking news links out there. Google might follow soon too,

00:36:46.440 based on C18, you know, which is a shakedown. It's basically trying to steal money from social

00:36:50.400 media companies to subsidize preferred media companies by the government. It's a disgusting 0.76

00:36:56.400 policy move. And they're not having any of it. And I don't blame them a bit. You don't have to

00:37:01.100 see some people screw meta to heck with Facebook. I hate them. I don't care. You don't have to like 0.99

00:37:06.660 them. You don't have to like Zuckerberg or any of them. But it doesn't mean they deserve to be

00:37:11.500 robbed by the government and have the money given over to other

00:37:15.420 um, um, you know, media outlets. It's, it's not, it's not right. Don't like Facebook. Don't go

00:37:23.300 there. Don't like meta or whatever. Don't like Google. Don't use it. Use Bing. But, uh, this

00:37:28.820 bill is terrible. And so what is the response though from Rodriguez? Well, he said, we're going

00:37:34.280 to dip in more and we will just make sure to keep pouring more money into the media outlets to cover

00:37:38.460 any money lost. Uh, if, if Facebook and all those block the links to it, they just won't back down

00:37:43.380 on this battle. This is bad, guys. It's bad for news in general. And yes, it could very much hurt

00:37:48.340 the Western standard. Something I'm going to put out for some self-serving advice, but it's true.

00:37:54.440 Sign up for email access to your favorite media outlet, guys. I know you get spammed, you get all

00:37:59.340 sorts of emails chronically from news organizations. Once their name got your list, you keep getting

00:38:05.340 them. But it's important because that way they can reach you with news without having to go through

00:38:11.080 those social media platforms and we can still get the stories to you and still share these things

00:38:16.980 because we don't know where this is going to end. We don't know where it's going to finish and you

00:38:20.560 just might not be able to find the sites as easily. I mean, they're always going to be there. The

00:38:24.160 site's there. All the social media platforms do is funnel the traffic to them. That's all. They

00:38:29.680 don't carry the content. That's where a lot of people are mistaken. Oh, Facebook's carrying and

00:38:33.220 making money off the content. No, they aren't. No, they aren't. They're just providing a link.

00:38:37.860 Likewise with Google, but it's going to be a lot harder to find them and it's going to reduce

00:38:42.680 traffic. And if we reduce traffic, we reduce the advertising revenue we can get. And that means we

00:38:47.720 can't provide as good a news as we did, or we don't get as many new subscribers. It's just

00:38:52.080 bad, bad, bad all around. And unfortunately, I think it's only going to get worse for it gets

00:38:58.100 better. We're seeing in the news now that Post Media and the company who owns the Toronto Star,

00:39:03.240 you know, two big, the remaining, you know, of the few media giants left in Canada,

00:39:07.880 they're all losing money hand over fist, are talking about merging now.

00:39:11.540 So then we'll just have one big losing entity.

00:39:14.080 I imagine it'll be easier to get the government welfare checks in.

00:39:16.900 But it won't fix media, unfortunately.

00:39:19.640 It's just a bigger version of the broken model.

00:39:23.360 We need to let legacy media die.

00:39:26.560 We need to let it go or evolve.

00:39:29.060 I'm not celebrating the lost jobs.

00:39:31.480 I'm not celebrating the loss of so many.

00:39:33.540 There are many, many good journalists.

00:39:35.260 I mean, loads of them out there in legacy media outlets, or they were.

00:39:38.700 But it's changed.

00:39:39.800 The whole media platform, the way it's done, is different.

00:39:44.280 And these guys are holding on to outdated, obsolete models.

00:39:48.960 They either have to adapt and scale down and get better, or they've just got to go away.

00:39:54.140 Subsidizing them, pouring tax dollars into them, or stealing money from social media giants and giving it to them,

00:39:59.840 that won't save them. That just puts off the inevitable at best. But it also harms the smaller

00:40:07.300 up and coming outlets like us with the Western Standard or True North or Epoch Times, Post

00:40:12.480 Millennial, all those other ones. They get hurt because there's still only so much market. It's

00:40:17.060 a tougher market now. We're in a battle for information. But like I said, you know, kind of

00:40:24.240 in a long circular way, we have to make sure we fact check our own information, get it out there.

00:40:29.840 Because when BS starts spreading, that's one of their favorite ways to make an excuse

00:40:33.300 to get in there and interfere with the sharing of information online.

00:40:37.560 And we got to check ourselves.

00:40:39.680 So when you see something and you find out that it's baloney going around, call it out.

00:40:45.260 Call it out online.

00:40:46.220 Shut it down.

00:40:47.460 Because, you know, it just gives them more reason to intervene.

00:40:51.620 And we do not want that.

00:40:52.660 Because they won't intervene for the sake of your truth or learning.

00:40:55.720 They'll intervene for their own sake.

00:40:57.040 We know that.

00:40:57.440 The government is self-serving. 0.99

00:40:58.400 speaking of self-serving jerks let's look at the Suzuki Foundation now they're they're taking to 0.98

00:41:05.120 the airwaves it says to tell the public that the liquefied natural gas industry is bad you know 0.99

00:41:10.620 see this is why we need independent media we need to report and counter the baloney that comes out

00:41:16.260 of nutcases like David Suzuki and his and his gross foundation you know the world is burning

00:41:22.620 a lot of high emission fuel. Most of the world's burning it, whether it's wood or coal or animal 0.54

00:41:29.420 dung. A lot of the developing world, they're using whatever they have to. Liquefied natural gas is

00:41:35.180 one of the best developments to help mitigate and reduce the emissions. No, it doesn't eliminate

00:41:40.400 them, but it reduces them. It's far less damaging than the other forms. But we've got lunatics like

00:41:49.380 the Suzuki Foundations and lunatics like Justin Trudeau, who are saying there's no market for 0.97

00:41:53.840 liquid natural gas, even though we've got countries asking, begging almost, for the export of things

00:42:00.800 like liquid natural gas. The demand is there, but we're not allowing ourselves to fill it. Other

00:42:06.220 countries are filling it. The United States is making a great deal of money exporting liquid

00:42:11.040 natural gas to places like Germany. Canada, on the other hand, has spent decades, still hasn't got

00:42:17.060 a single drop of LNG off the coast yet. Eventually it looks like the Kitimat project might come into

00:42:24.400 operation, but I'm at a point where I'll believe it when I see it. And in the meantime, while

00:42:30.480 billions are being invested, while years of fighting over the coastal gas link pipeline have

00:42:35.500 gone on, and it's getting close to completion where they can finally get a return on this,

00:42:40.280 where some money will come back, where you can sell some product, or you can invest it back into

00:42:44.480 your country. Clowns like the David Suzuki Foundation are saying we should shut down 0.95

00:42:49.080 liquid natural gas. These extremists, and they are extremists, want us to economically kick 0.99

00:42:56.320 ourselves in the balls and we can't let them get away with it. We've got to push back. So again, 0.98

00:43:02.500 getting self-serving as I like to do, that's why independent media is important because guys like

00:43:07.780 him need to be countered. They need to be called out. We need the facts to get out there. Or guys

00:43:13.480 like Trudeau will hide behind extremists like David Suzuki, and we will shut down viable energy

00:43:19.720 alternatives, and is harming the entire world. Japan needs LNG, India needs LNG, Germany needs 0.78

00:43:28.700 LNG. We have it. And we can't get it out of here. As Anita Salisbury, you know, a commenter saying

00:43:37.720 yeah, told Germany, you know, Trudeau told Germany there was no business. And then he gives no

00:43:42.220 business for LNG, and he gives 13 billion tax dollars to a Volkswagen plant for batteries.

00:43:49.540 Nobody wanted that. If it was financially viable, you don't need to give them that.

00:43:55.120 It's not that complicated. But we've got an inept government. We've got a corrupted government. 0.87

00:44:01.400 And as long as they can control information, we're in a lot of trouble, guys. So we've got

00:44:06.840 to stand up for ourselves make sure our information is accurate and uh yes support your independent

00:44:12.920 media outlets guys because i mean you you look at that you know toronto star and post media are

00:44:17.680 looking to merge i mean just a horrible thought just think of the giant ugly evil empire of media

00:44:21.700 that'll become for a short time till they go broke too but they're gonna pull a lot of subsidies and

00:44:27.040 a lot of influence both ways from the government to that media organization the toronto star i mean

00:44:33.780 known as the Red Star. Come on, guys. And you want that to dominate the media landscape even

00:44:38.860 more than it already does? Scary stuff, actually. Very distressing. So, I mean, we need to make sure

00:44:44.860 we have the alternatives out there, guys, because if we put it all into one basket with these sorts

00:44:50.520 of media outlets like that, we're all going to be in trouble. All right. Well, let's get a report

00:44:55.360 on the agricultural front from Jim Busicum of Marketplace Commodities and see what's happening

00:45:02.280 out there hey jim good to see you back again this week how you doing hey doing great cory how are

00:45:07.480 you doing today i'm all right i'm all right always lots for me to rant on there you go there you go

00:45:13.240 all right so i'll start with um stats can acreage estimates came out this morning stats can uh

00:45:19.720 collects these estimates going back into roughly the start of april so there can be some variants

00:45:27.000 if farmers do change their seeding plans but you know really the short of it is on acreage estimates

00:45:34.200 if you look at a look at the changes year over year is that the crops that over the last year

00:45:42.040 were really high in price so you take durham wheat spring wheat all wheat classes barley

00:45:48.600 those acres are up roughly 20 percent on all wheat up around four percent on barley and then some

00:45:55.960 things that may be good prices but not great prices the last year pulse crops such as lentils

00:46:02.840 and peas relatively flat not not bad pricing but not as good as maybe what some of the other

00:46:10.360 commodities are those acreages are down somewhere in 15 to 20 range oats also a big change year over

00:46:17.880 year down 35 and then fun fact i bet most people listening here don't know it but farmers actually

00:46:25.720 grow a lot of canary seed of all things there's roughly 300 000 acres of canary seed on the

00:46:31.080 prairies and it's it's not a major commodity by any means but i thought just fun facts throw it

00:46:36.760 out there and it's just really used for feeding birds that's all it is so um as far as commodities

00:46:46.360 go for the rest we're still right in the middle of a weather market prices are extremely volatile

00:46:53.800 we're seeing a lot of price range on a week-to-week basis on whether it rains or doesn't

00:46:59.000 rain um we've seen good parts of western canada get rains uh how be it there's still dry areas

00:47:05.880 going along the eastern side western side of saskatchewan eastern side of alberta that is

00:47:11.880 and uh so we got a few more hoops to go through before we have another crop in the bin all right

00:47:17.720 yeah just a you know a note before i let you go then we did i mean it was a couple weeks ago when

00:47:21.640 when we spoke and things were looking very, very bleak for the rain though. And we did, as you said,

00:47:26.040 get some, at least in the Western end of Alberta, was it too late or did it make a difference at

00:47:29.540 least for some? It wasn't too late. It, it, uh, there's certainly some individuals and some areas

00:47:36.740 that the rain came somewhat too late. It takes away the optimal production, but you can still

00:47:44.500 come out with an average production in Western Canada. I'll be like, I am aware of it. We talk

00:47:49.360 to farmers all day long there are areas in alberta especially that are basically close to zero

00:47:55.540 production right now likewise there's some really really good areas and i know this is an alberta

00:48:02.360 show but down in montana they have bumper crops coming up montana is only 100 kilometers away

00:48:08.960 from lethbridge so a lot of those grains if they're feed quality they can work their way up

00:48:14.140 into Alberta. Well, it's the luck of the draw year by year, I guess. Nobody ever said it was an easy

00:48:20.240 industry. There you go. All right. Well, thanks for the updates, Jim. And well, let's keep hoping

00:48:27.660 things stay decently strong and we'll check in with you again soon. All right. Thanks a lot.

00:48:32.340 Bye-bye. Thank you. So that was Jim Busicum of Marketplace Commodities. Yeah, that whole

00:48:37.660 agricultural market, like I said, Paradox, he's saying that the bird seed, I didn't know that.

00:48:41.160 Yeah, I didn't either.

00:48:41.940 I saw that in the list on the image, you know, canary seed.

00:48:45.360 I thought maybe it was a term for some sort of food crop, you know, and they call it that or something.

00:48:49.600 But no, I guess it's bird seed.

00:48:51.080 Somebody has got to grow somewhere, right?

00:48:52.800 It makes sense.

00:48:53.620 So why not diversify your crops, grow something a little different out there.

00:48:58.180 And yeah, it's small relative to the others.

00:49:00.180 But when you're talking 300,000 acres, it's still a sizable chunk of land out there.

00:49:06.020 So, well, cool.

00:49:07.660 You know, the more you know.

00:49:08.460 there you see we got our little educational parts of this show it's not just me rambling and twisting

00:49:13.400 your ear with my my anger and uh rage on things though i mean that we do dominate with a lot of

00:49:18.620 that uh let's see what else we've got going on yeah an interesting story with uh canada day

00:49:24.320 approaching uh the citizenship you know so we put out a thing uh the citizenship survey if you want

00:49:28.500 to become a citizen of canada you have to answer a bunch of questions about you know the the country

00:49:33.320 and we were asking them around the newsroom a little bit dave was asking them and because this

00:49:37.720 survey found 1,500 Canadians that only 23% would actually pass the citizenship test. These are 0.87

00:49:43.120 people already here based on answers to 10 randomly selected questions. And he was asking

00:49:47.320 those questions that I couldn't get them either. I'd fail the citizenship test, I think, if I had

00:49:51.600 to go through it. You know, it's important to have these tests, obviously. And I suspect committed

00:49:57.060 new Canadians are going to read, you know, and study and be very careful and they'll make sure

00:50:01.660 to pass these tests. But the homegrown Canadians, I guess we're lapsing or lagging on our own 0.93

00:50:06.680 history. We, we aren't as well educated on the nation as the new Canadians coming in are. So 1.00

00:50:13.900 that's a bit of a, I don't know, I can speak to our education or speak to our attitudes or speak

00:50:18.020 to a number of things. Interesting thing to come out before Canada, you know, to find that most of

00:50:21.500 us, I mean, at least I'm not alone. The majority of us wouldn't pass that darn test. Another 0.99

00:50:26.980 interesting thing, just seeing it unfold, I'll finish up with two. I'm really hoping, you know,

00:50:31.520 and I can do, I probably will do whole shows on it down the road, but as healthcare, it's just

00:50:36.880 always ongoing. It's always big. I'm really hoping that Premier Smith maintains the courage to get

00:50:42.280 in there and reform it and do some stuff and shake that Alberta Health Services tree. And we're

00:50:47.060 seeing just how ugly it's getting. This whole thing with Dr. Dina Hinshaw, now whether she was

00:50:51.840 fairly treated or not fairly, I don't know. She was the person who was the head of the public 0.56

00:50:57.460 health officer while the pandemic hit none of them that's not a good position to be in I think

00:51:02.620 for anybody at that point I'm sure through a lot of it she wishes she was just back in her office

00:51:07.980 in a cubby hole somewhere in the legislative buildings and tracking you know venereal disease

00:51:13.040 outbreaks at high school dances rather than dealing with COVID but she got caught in the

00:51:16.660 middle of it and rightly or wrongly whatever she got fired eventually once Smith came in

00:51:23.060 partly due to some of the actions Hinshaw did, or I think partly was just followed from her doing

00:51:28.460 what she was told to do by the Kennedy government. But it doesn't matter, she was gone. But then we

00:51:32.900 find out recently, no, she's back. She's been hired into a different department. And then they

00:51:37.700 said, no, no, no, no, that was fake. It was a fake letterhead and everything else. Well, no, it turns

00:51:41.400 out it really was real. And she got unhired is the way they're putting it, because I think she never

00:51:44.940 quite got started. And now a bunch of doctors are having a temper tantrum over it. Talk about 0.71

00:51:50.340 politics in our health care provision, guys. You know, the amount of noise and who hired her and 0.65

00:51:57.240 how this is going on is just showing what a bureaucratic nightmare the health care administration

00:52:02.540 and system is. What a mess. What a bloody mess. End to end. And they're all fighting with each

00:52:08.220 other. Doctors fighting. Look, we need to decentralize. And this is in every province.

00:52:12.660 It doesn't, isn't just Alberta. That's the thing that we have to, every opposition party claims

00:52:16.240 that their province is the worst on the planet. Well, no, actually, if you go across the country,

00:52:19.920 every province has the same problem going on. Every one of them, because none of them will

00:52:24.560 change the system. None of them have the courage to take on their own bureaucrats and unions.

00:52:29.080 I'm hoping Daniel Smith will be the first one to have the courage to take that on. So yeah,

00:52:32.100 it looks like a bit of a debacle with this in Henshaw, out Henshaw and a hundred doctors

00:52:36.380 whining. And you know, it's the same hundred doctors who complain as Dr. Vipond and others.

00:52:41.560 They're all NDP members and union supporters. It's just the same old stuff and the legacy

00:52:46.040 media feeding that crap. But either way, a little bit of chaos hopefully is an indication of actual 0.95

00:52:53.060 reforms coming because they're going to fight Smith tooth and nail. The status quo is going to

00:52:57.240 fight. It's like I've said in the past, she's got to stand strong. She's got to push back. She's got

00:53:01.360 to reform that system or we're all going to lose. All right. Well, that's enough for today, guys.

00:53:06.200 I've covered quite a bit of ground. I will let you all go back to your summer days. So thank you

00:53:12.220 very much for joining us today guys and we will be back again with another guest more ranting

00:53:16.760 more news and all that good stuff next week at this time so i'll see you then

00:53:20.660 here's what commodity prices are doing in lethbridge today cash barley is steady at 420

00:53:28.240 feed wheat is down five dollars at 415 and corn is down 15 at 403 per metric ton

00:53:34.760 in the milling wheat markets july minneapolis futures dropped 27 cents to 806 per bushel

00:53:40.460 with local heart rate spring bid for July movement at $10.50 per bushel.

00:53:45.600 Looking at canola, nearby futures fell $29.40 at $7.09.90 per tonne with delivered rise for

00:53:52.720 July movement at $16.32 per bushel. In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading at

00:53:58.400 $0.33.50 per pound and yellow peas are steady at $11.25 per bushel. And in the cattle markets,

00:54:05.040 August live cattle are higher 27.5 cents at 179.56 per 100 weight. For more information on pricing

00:54:12.400 or picked up options give me a call at 403 394 1711. I'm Matt Musicum at Marketplace Commodities,

00:54:20.480 accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options. Canadian Shooting Sports

00:54:24.960 Association, without the CSSA our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago. These

00:54:30.560 guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and

00:54:36.560 legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns

00:54:41.760 out of the hands of the wrong people who become a member it's absolutely worth every penny

00:55:11.760 Thank you.

Western Standard - June 29, 2023

CMS： ESG is finally going into the corporate dustbin where it belongs

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript