Western Standard - CMS： 'If citizens don’t trust the electoral system, democracy is in peril.'

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 good day it is wednesday march 22nd 2023 welcome to the cory morgan show as you can see i am cory

00:00:40.720 morgan the regular host of this we cover lots of issues cover some ranting cover some raving

00:00:46.880 and interview some interesting guests and i got a good interesting one coming on today

00:00:51.040 he's author philip slayton he put out a book recently he's a canadian author

00:00:55.200 on anti-semitism which is hardly a new issue anti-semitism has been a problem and going on

00:01:01.600 since uh since the creation of jews i imagine but he's got a bit of a different approach to it

00:01:07.040 and a bit of a different outlook in this book on it i mean it's not a matter of denying that it

00:01:11.920 exists by any means uh but it also kind of goes into whether or not it's it's uh perhaps being a

00:01:18.640 bit overstated even it'll be an interesting discussion i read the book and it's a most

00:01:23.040 interesting read. So it'll be a good conversation as well. Of course, I'll be talking about a number

00:01:28.680 of issues as we got crazy, crazy times going on out there. So, you know, I like to remind everybody

00:01:35.420 to the reason, you know, that we cover these issues. We talk about these things. We remain

00:01:39.460 independent is because you guys have subscribed. So I'm going to get that nagging out of the way

00:01:43.900 and get those bills paid guys, 99, $99 a year, 999 a month. And you get full access past that

00:01:51.460 annoying paywall into all of that content we got. We've got a whole number of columnists and

00:01:56.240 newswriters across the country here. And the reason we got them is because you guys have

00:02:00.200 been subscribing. And if you haven't yet, please do guys. It's well worth it. C11, C18, those media

00:02:05.760 control bills that the federal government is putting in, they're probably going to be coming

00:02:09.000 and being put into force soon. We have to protect independent media. So again, thank you subscribers.

00:02:15.920 And if you haven't, come on guys, get on there. I mean, I know the show's free, but the rest of

00:02:20.960 our stuff needs to be paid too. All right. So I'm going to start with kind of a, on some,

00:02:25.060 this has been an issue lately. So it's about the electoral process. And if citizens, if they don't

00:02:29.620 trust the electrical, the electoral system, democracy itself is in peril. And it doesn't

00:02:35.080 matter if breaches in the electoral integrity are actually real or imagined. I mean, once the

00:02:39.180 mistrust is entrenched, it festers and a growing number of people become unwilling to accept

00:02:44.200 electoral outcomes. They could give up in voting altogether, which is bad, but even worse, it could

00:02:49.320 lead to things like the riots we saw on January 6th in the United States on 2021. In Canada,

00:02:56.200 trust in the system is eroding fast right now due to the exposure of Chinese Communist Party 1.00

00:03:00.600 efforts to interfere in elections at all levels of government. I mean, that the CCP would try to

00:03:05.300 interfere with elections, that doesn't come as a shock to anybody. Those efforts cause apprehension

00:03:09.800 and people want to ensure those efforts fail, but we know they're going to keep trying. It's the

00:03:14.840 government's efforts to downplay the impact of the electoral interference efforts that are

00:03:18.900 shattering trust in the system. If the Trudeau government gets away with brushing this scandal

00:03:22.980 under the rug, and they might, Canada's democracy itself is going to be at serious risk. Officials

00:03:28.180 keep parroting lines from reports saying the CCP interference didn't change the outcome of the

00:03:32.400 election as this should comfort us, as if it should. It does appear that the interference

00:03:37.440 though has directly compromised at least one Ontario MPP and as many as 11 federal MPs.

00:03:43.540 We're apparently just expected to shrug this off, let it go because it was just a little

00:03:47.000 interference? Now, new evidence is indicating the CCP has been meddling in civic elections in

00:03:51.880 Canada too. Again, I've said it before, Canada is nothing less than a full public inquiry into the

00:03:57.740 election interference scandal if this virus of electoral mistrust is to be stopped. I understand

00:04:03.840 cynical people when they say such an inquiry wouldn't lead to consequences for the top

00:04:07.700 offenders. They might be right. The exposure of the corruption in the system, though, could force

00:04:11.980 some changes, and people could at least find some remedy at the ballot box. If we don't feel

00:04:17.300 confident we can find remedy at the ballot box, then we aren't in a democracy. Canada's current

00:04:21.760 system of elections, it is actually a good one, though it's been abused. Efforts to reform it,

00:04:26.780 to add efficiency, though, those are only adding, you know, more mistrust and eroding, and it could

00:04:31.420 lead to reduced voter turnouts. For example, we don't need massive mail-in ballot initiatives.

00:04:36.040 There was already a system in place where people who would be away at voting time could vote

00:04:40.340 remotely. I used it a lot when I worked in the oil field. Even if the mail-in ballots aren't being

00:04:44.960 abused, it leaves room for people to claim it has been, and that trust continues to fade.

00:04:50.140 It isn't hard to get out to vote. Polling stations are all over the place, and advanced polls are

00:04:54.240 open for days. Volunteers from parties will literally drive you to the poll and back

00:04:58.160 if you want, and you don't even have to vote for that party when you're there. A little secret for

00:05:03.040 you. A person can't, if a person can't trouble themselves to vote with that much convenience in

00:05:07.420 hand, I don't really care if they vote. We don't need to hand them the right on a silver bloody 0.74

00:05:11.140 platter. Counting paper ballots by hand. It's a slow resource intensive process, but it's worked

00:05:18.560 for over a century and it is effective. Scrutineers from every party can be present to watch every

00:05:23.820 step of the process from sealing the empty ballot boxes in the morning to opening and counting those

00:05:28.240 ballots at the end of the day. It's terribly tough to rig such a system with all that independent

00:05:33.100 oversight now if we bring in electronic voting machines and counting machines they might make

00:05:38.300 things faster but can they be trusted the vote counts can't be verified by scrutineers with

00:05:43.180 those machines let's not pretend that computerized systems aren't hacked constantly i'm not a luddite

00:05:48.460 but i do oppose adding technology to a process that doesn't need it now elections canada has

00:05:53.660 just approved a new form of electronic voting lists and apparently those this data is going

00:05:58.060 to be shared overseas this is a country that's already racked with foreign election interference

00:06:02.060 scandals, and Elections Canada is considering having these voting lists sourced and kept

00:06:06.360 overseas. Sure, it would speed things up at the polls and allow people to vote in more locations,

00:06:10.880 but it's going to digitize a resource and centralize it for prospective abuse.

00:06:15.020 Even if there's no abuse, people are going to suspect it. Some losing candidates and their

00:06:20.000 supporters are surely going to claim that the system caused their loss, and they'll foster

00:06:23.820 rumors. Meanwhile, that, again, ever-important trust continues to evaporate. Canada needs to

00:06:29.920 expose and weed out the electoral interference that's already happened. It has to stop pissing

00:06:34.200 around with the current system of voting and vote counting. Otherwise, the foundation of our

00:06:38.220 democracy will truly crumble. Without trusted elections, we really do have nothing. That's

00:06:45.060 what's got me going today, guys. And I'm saying that, you know, I'll talk a little more about that.

00:06:49.600 The reason I know about this, and a lot of people haven't worked within parties or haven't worked

00:06:52.800 in elections, I've done it. I managed some campaigns, scrutineering. It's something you

00:06:57.060 don't hear much about. You might notice them when you go in to vote. You go in there and you see

00:07:01.140 some people standing off to the side and they'll be wearing a tag showing which party they're with.

00:07:04.840 And they're not allowed to campaign at you or try to intimidate your vote or push you around.

00:07:10.340 They're just there to watch. And they are allowed to be there for every part of it. Like I said,

00:07:16.420 I mean, how do you rig it with paper ballots? How can you pull off that magic? If you've got the

00:07:20.660 parties taking part and having scrutineers in there, as I said, when the polls open in the

00:07:25.540 morning or even before they open, the scrutineers can come in. They will show you the empty boxes

00:07:28.920 that people put their ballots into and seal them in front of you. So, you know, the box hasn't

00:07:34.080 been stuffed and you can be there or have other scrutineers on shift there all day watching. At

00:07:39.900 the end of the day, the scrutineers stay when the boxes are opened up, when the votes are taken out

00:07:45.000 and they watch them being counted. And every party, at least is allowed to, not every party

00:07:51.460 necessarily has the volunteers to do it. But they're allowed to have the people in there doing

00:07:55.240 that. It's a great system. I mean, think about how hard would it be to really rig that? Now,

00:08:00.840 if you start getting electronic voting machines, though, you know, or the counting machines,

00:08:05.480 look at the stuff that went on back with Al Gore and George W. Bush, and it went on for weeks and

00:08:11.400 months, and it just erodes the trust. Why? We don't need to do this. Stick to that. Plus,

00:08:17.600 when you have paper ballots, if there's questions, if there's problems, you can dig out those

00:08:23.360 ballots and go through them all again. And you start going to all these electronics. And I tell

00:08:28.040 you what, it's just a recipe for more problems. And you do have to wonder the motivations of the

00:08:33.440 government and why they want to push for these things all the time. I mean, voter turnouts are

00:08:37.480 going low. But there's so many people saying, well, we got to make it easier. We got to make

00:08:41.240 it easier. Like I said, kiss my butt. You know, look at what people have gone through to vote in 1.00

00:08:45.900 other areas. Look at it in Iraq. You remember when they're proudly coming out with the dye on their 1.00

00:08:49.640 fingers, you know, purple, they were risking their lives to go out and vote. And in Canada,

00:08:55.660 we're saying there's not enough polling stations. It's hard for them to get out. Oh, too bad. Come

00:08:59.440 on. You get people telling you about the voting day, literally every day for a month during a

00:09:05.820 campaign. You have all the information in the world. You will never, I mean, aside from some

00:09:10.320 rural spots, you're never going to live more than a five minute drive tops from your polling station.

00:09:15.700 And as I said, parties, you phone up any of them.

00:09:19.840 If they got a good campaign and say, hey, I need a ride to the polling booths, they'll send a volunteer out there to get you and drive you right to it and drive you back home again. 0.93

00:09:27.980 They'll do it.

00:09:29.300 So no, we don't need all these extra things and means and ideas to try and get people out to vote.

00:09:34.500 The thing that's keeping people out to vote is the feeling that it doesn't make a difference.

00:09:38.980 It's a feeling that the system might be broken.

00:09:41.620 That's what keeps the voting down.

00:09:43.940 If people feel their vote actually matters, they'll go out and vote.

00:09:47.540 If they feel they're putting that vote into a system that can be trusted, they'll go out and vote.

00:09:53.560 So, I mean, they're going about it the wrong way.

00:09:55.180 They're putting in more things that will make us trusted even less, and voter turnouts are going to continue to go down.

00:09:59.080 And I think, unfortunately, some unprincipled people and politicians want that.

00:10:03.460 They want that low turnout.

00:10:04.440 They thrive on it.

00:10:05.620 Apathy is their friend.

00:10:07.080 But I tell you what, cynicism and apathy is not our friend.

00:10:10.440 They call it participatory democracy.

00:10:13.320 That's because we have to participate in it.

00:10:15.480 We do. 0.99

00:10:15.880 We've got to get off our butts. 0.96

00:10:17.020 As frustrating as it is, as much as it doesn't feel like it's doing anything, it's up to us. 0.91

00:10:21.660 Because if we don't take advantage of it, we do lose those rights.

00:10:24.860 Again, I mentioned it on the pipeline the other day, but I still thought it was really striking.

00:10:27.920 I went to a public meeting, a group that was organizing things.

00:10:30.660 I was just observing.

00:10:31.560 When things happen, I go, I watch.

00:10:33.800 And one of the statements that came out, because somebody from the audience questioned, because it's been a big issue,

00:10:37.500 about the libraries and these readings, you know, drag queen story hours and things like that

00:10:43.360 that people get upset about in front of the kids. And the speaker at this event said,

00:10:48.140 okay, everybody in the room, raise your hand if you've been a member of a board, a library.

00:10:55.960 And, you know, a hundred and some people there, not a single hand went up. So you live in your

00:10:59.600 area. If you're concerned about your library, did you know you can just go down and join the board?

00:11:04.400 That's one of those things that actually I'm sure when they have their meeting, there's only

00:11:07.400 a dozen people there, and anybody who raises their hand will be on the board. You can take control of

00:11:12.700 it calmly, quietly by taking part within your local library, much more effectively than being

00:11:18.500 outside screaming with Larry Heather and some other, you know, folks protesting and waving

00:11:23.740 signs. But you got to get out and do it. That's the thing. And if you don't, somebody will also

00:11:29.020 take care of it. So the hard left, the far left have figured this out. They know this. Why do they

00:11:33.820 even get in at these drag queen story hours? Well, because they have their people on the board. 0.82

00:11:38.680 So get in there then. Don't let them own the board. You have just as much right to it as well.

00:11:44.120 And again, I'm not that concerned about it anyways. I mean, I wouldn't send my kids to it,

00:11:48.480 but I mean, these things are voluntary. If we get into the schools, which again, there just seems to

00:11:52.960 be no end to these moral challenges and issues. Well, then, you know, we got more stuff to battle

00:11:57.560 about. But the library issue, democracy, things in general, guys, it's up to us. And we've got the

00:12:03.180 power, but often we let it go on ourselves. Speaking of, even if the government means well,

00:12:09.300 so I'm going to get started with some of these new, you know, news stories for today as we move

00:12:13.600 towards the guest. Bungled payroll, now $685 million. Yeah. So federally, of course, because

00:12:21.240 you know, no private company, private companies screw up. They do that all the time. We know that.

00:12:25.320 But to the degree of oops, we screwed up payroll by $685 million. No, that takes government to get

00:12:31.800 to that level of incompetence. And that's what happened. I guess federal employees were

00:12:37.300 shortchanged by screwed up payroll software, and it's cost $685 million to try and fix.

00:12:44.240 Now, this is the Phoenix payroll system. You might have heard about it before.

00:12:48.120 You might be surprised that it's still actually in operation. This thing has been a disaster since

00:12:53.140 day one. And hey, again, I will call out initiatives no matter which party. This was

00:12:57.720 Stephen Harper, when he was in power, when this thing was brought in back, I believe, in 2016.

00:13:02.460 And this thing has cost $2.6 billion in ongoing fixes to this software.

00:13:10.200 Really?

00:13:11.400 You know, speaking again of inquiries, of corruption, of problems,

00:13:14.920 how on earth do you pump $2.6 billion into a payroll system?

00:13:21.780 I mean, something, that money is leaking out somewhere.

00:13:24.340 somebody's pocketing a whole lot of cash, and you're not even getting the results. 0.87

00:13:29.900 And again, these are the same clowns that want to have a digitized form of managing the election. 0.97

00:13:36.140 These are the same morons that put together the Arrive Can app, which cost millions and millions 0.99

00:13:41.880 of dollars as well, that probably could have been done by some software geek in a basement for $100,000. 0.99

00:13:47.580 dollars. So entrusting the, this government that can't even pay themselves, can't even pay their

00:13:54.500 own staff, can't come up with a payroll system. Thousands of companies around the world, maybe

00:13:58.980 millions that have payroll systems that pay their staff. This isn't unprecedented yet. Somehow our

00:14:05.320 government's completely incapable of doing it right and getting a software system to work.

00:14:09.920 And they want to get more software systems to manage our elections. Look, I feel for some

00:14:16.000 federal employee if their paycheck bounces or is paying them half the amount it's supposed to.

00:14:19.800 But I'm much more concerned about a government screwing up our elections. As I said, it's

00:14:26.180 everything. If we can't select our representatives, if we don't have that power, if it's not an

00:14:31.400 efficient system, we're up the creek. So these little things, they slide under the radar. We've

00:14:37.940 got everything else going on in the CCP election interference in that. Meanwhile, the government

00:14:41.680 is bringing in electronic means where they don't need to in our electoral system. And we should all

00:14:47.480 be very, very, very concerned about that. Yeah, here's another one, you know, so there's a

00:14:56.760 Privy Council office, that's basically the Prime Minister's office, and they spend a lot of money

00:15:01.320 on studies, there's so many rackets that go on in Ottawa, I tell you, there's so many people make so

00:15:05.400 much money doing these commissions, these studies, and all these things all the time. This one was,

00:15:09.380 I guess they studied about the First Nations people about, well, how do you guys feel about

00:15:12.940 the new holiday that Prime Minister Trudeau gave you in recognition of residential schools? You

00:15:17.460 know, the new one that he went surfing the first time we held it. Well, they have mixed feelings.

00:15:23.480 It sounds like most of them were just like along the lines of, yeah, we're more concerned about

00:15:28.660 not having clean water and, you know, some of the other problems that are going on rather than a

00:15:35.080 feel good holiday with a bunch of people in orange shirts. Thanks. But will the government

00:15:39.040 pay attention? You know, they have a lack of high speed internet crime rates and strained

00:15:43.080 relations with law enforcement. No amount of holidays, you know, I'll go on a side rant,

00:15:49.000 but I'll tell you, I'm going to say it outright too. Something that no, not enough politicians,

00:15:52.240 not enough people have the courage to say. The federal, the native reserve system is broken.

00:15:58.360 It's fundamentally broken. It's not going to work. It can't work. We have people living

00:16:04.600 in isolated areas without means of income

00:16:08.140 that just sit there.

00:16:11.300 And they've been victimized by some bad policy in the past.

00:16:15.560 They used to have to get permits to leave the reserves.

00:16:17.660 There was residential school abuses.

00:16:19.880 There was things that happened.

00:16:20.580 And we've got some very troubled, socially dysfunctional people

00:16:25.240 stuck on these racial enclaves, separated from everybody else.

00:16:29.900 And then we seem to keep expressing shock that the crime rates are high,

00:16:33.460 the substance abuse rates are high, the, you know, the graduation rates are low, the suicide rates

00:16:39.800 are high. Every measure, you can check it out. I wrote a column on that years ago, and I dug into

00:16:45.940 it. Every possible socioeconomic measure of, you know, prosperity or well-being on reserve is lower

00:16:55.600 than the average and a lot lower. Victims of crime as well as perpetrators of crime. It's just a mess.

00:17:02.520 we have to accept. And it used to drive me nuts when I would work in the oil fields and I'd go to

00:17:07.140 those isolated areas and I would see the conditions and they're getting worse and worse. And it's not

00:17:12.120 for lack of money. We're pumping more and more funding into those reserves every year. It's not

00:17:18.040 working. It's a black hole. And the people living on those reserves are suffering. Recent stories

00:17:24.120 we saw on the news. It's tragic. It's terrible. Wild dogs, or at least uncontained dogs have been

00:17:31.040 attacking children. This story isn't new. This has been happening in reserves across Canada.

00:17:35.940 Nowhere else in Canada do you have feral, wild, vicious dog problems like that, except on reserves.

00:17:42.140 And it's been going on for a long time. This was happening outside of Calgary. And it's still

00:17:46.600 happening on the Sutina Reserve. That's just a few miles up the road from where I live.

00:17:50.120 My neighbors find dogs wandering under their property all the time. And there were problems

00:17:55.120 with it. The dogs were harassing fishermen. I remember this a few years back in Calgary.

00:17:59.860 And it was the bylaw enforcement guy.

00:18:02.720 They used to call him Bylaw Bill, I think it was.

00:18:04.780 And there were problems with these dogs

00:18:06.220 where they were hassling fishermen

00:18:07.140 on the Elbow River or the Fish Creek and through there

00:18:08.960 because they're coming off the reserve,

00:18:10.200 these feral dogs, and they're getting dangerous. 0.90

00:18:12.360 And what this Bylaw Bill clown comes up with and says,

00:18:15.200 well, the reason for this is because people from Calgary

00:18:18.720 have been driving onto the reserve

00:18:19.980 and dumping unwanted dogs there. 1.00

00:18:22.520 What a load of crap. 1.00

00:18:24.600 What a load of hooey. 1.00

00:18:26.160 I mean, talk about diverting from the responsibility

00:18:28.640 of what happened on on how this came about. Look, guys, again, it's not a matter of pointing fingers

00:18:35.680 blame, like the reality is, you've got people living on the reserve who are in bad, bad condition.

00:18:40.180 And yes, getting their dog spayed or neutered isn't a high priority for them. So the dogs run wild,

00:18:44.460 they breed, and then they don't take care of the new puppies, and they go out there and become

00:18:48.020 feral. But to make up a story as if people have been driving out there and dumping, why would you

00:18:52.480 go out of your way to go to reserve to dump a dog? Dogs get dumped, I understand that. But

00:18:56.380 you know, the losers who do that, they don't care. They will drive to whatever the nearest 0.98

00:19:00.400 rural road is and do it. So why doesn't Strathmore have an abandoned dog problem? Why doesn't

00:19:05.340 Okotoks have an abandoned problem? You know, any of the areas around Calgary, the only one that

00:19:09.580 has a problem is the reserve. Why is it that there's wild dog problems in distant northern

00:19:14.880 reserves? Onion Lake, and when I was up there, man, the wild dogs were brutal out that way.

00:19:19.260 Are people driving hours from Edmonton just to abandon their dogs there? No, but we've got this

00:19:24.860 attitude of denial, this attitude of fostering more irresponsibility and not following through,

00:19:31.740 not recognizing that the system is broken. It's not working. And we have public officials making

00:19:38.000 those excuses. It's wrong. And it's not serving the people living on the reserves. And it's not

00:19:43.840 serving us. Nobody's winning. So when we get these ongoing studies to the Privy Council, as I said,

00:19:51.260 things like that saying that yes having a new holiday doesn't seem to make people living on

00:19:58.100 the reserves more content well no that's because their their problems run a heck of a lot more

00:20:03.120 deeply than having an orange shirt day at the local school so uh we're gonna go to our guest

00:20:10.860 pretty soon i'm gonna run a quick ad before we do so and uh then we'll have a conversation with

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00:20:40.080 Hello, Mr. Slayton. Thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

00:20:46.640 It's a pleasure, Corey. How are you?

00:20:48.460 Very good. Thanks. So I did read your fine book, cover to cover there. I appreciate it being sent

00:20:55.140 out. It's on a subject, of course, that is, as I said, kind of at the start of the show. It's

00:21:02.200 existed since the first Jews came about. But you've kind of taken a bit of a different approach,

00:21:08.380 at least with addressing anti-Semitism and in more of the modern context.

00:21:13.160 Yes, I have. I've tried to place anti-Semitism, which, of course, as you know, has been around for a long time.

00:21:18.980 I've tried to place it in the context of modern identity politics, modern social media, the rise of populism,

00:21:26.800 other things that are happening in the world today and see how all those things fit together.

00:21:30.440 Yeah. And, you know, you kind of begin, I almost, I guess, in a controversial sense and into the almost to some degree, the anti-Semitism has been woven into the Jewish identity.

00:21:42.560 And it's actually one of the things that's helped keep Jews united when they're spread all over the place, even if it's such an odious concept. 1.00

00:21:49.620 Well, I think that's true. I mean, a number of people, including, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre, have said that it's really anti-Semitism more than anything else that keeps Jews together. 0.99

00:21:58.600 And if you look at Jews through the world, they're a very disparate community in many respects.

00:22:03.740 They have a variety of different views.

00:22:06.760 Some are religious, but most are not.

00:22:09.940 Some support Israel, but some do not.

00:22:12.600 And within Israel, as we've seen recently, there's all kinds of groups from different

00:22:17.360 backgrounds with different beliefs, with different degrees of religion that spend a lot of time

00:22:21.540 fighting each other.

00:22:22.540 So when you look at these very disparate communities within Israel around the world, you say, well,

00:22:27.580 gives it identity and one of the views is i think it's an important view is that it's anti-semitism

00:22:34.140 the fact that for some strange reason a lot of other people don't like the jews and jewish

00:22:39.260 community that's what drives the jewish community together yeah and something i noticed lee you know

00:22:47.020 year after year we're hearing when it comes to reported incidents of uh racism for example

00:22:52.300 anti-semitism tends to top the list but i mean aside from very high profile things like the

00:22:57.020 horrific you know shootings in Pittsburgh and things such as that uh is it a matter though of

00:23:01.980 a lot more things are being reported because we're not really I don't really see it on the ground as

00:23:06.700 much I mean people are reporting microaggressions or relatively minor incidents well I mean I think

00:23:12.380 there is of course expressions of anti-semitism quite often in different places around the world

00:23:17.740 including within our own country but my view is that some of them are relatively small consequence

00:23:24.620 and not to be given huge weight, they don't mean that, you know,

00:23:29.940 another Holocaust is around the corner, and one criticism I would make 1.00

00:23:33.900 of some members of the Jewish community is they tend to overblow 1.00

00:23:37.380 and exaggerate these incidents in a way that's not healthy

00:23:41.500 and doesn't help the Jewish community or any community.

00:23:44.240 Now, I understand why people do this.

00:23:47.220 I mean, we still live under the shadow of the Holocaust.

00:23:49.640 There are still a lot of people who are very nervous

00:23:52.480 about how Jews have been treated

00:23:54.240 and could be treated in the future.

00:23:56.060 But I do think a more discerning way

00:23:59.440 of considering expressions of antisemitism is a good thing. 1.00

00:24:03.320 And I think the response to expressions

00:24:05.980 of antisemitism needs to be proportional.

00:24:08.660 You know, not everything is a deep, dark, terrible tragedy

00:24:11.900 that foretells doom and gloom.

00:24:14.740 Some things are not.

00:24:16.200 So to answer your point, I think antisemitism continues,

00:24:19.920 but actually the degree of it and the importance of it

00:24:23.420 and the significance of it can be exaggerated.

00:24:26.580 Well, yeah, I mean, we see issues again.

00:24:29.840 I mean, it can spawn more vitriolic or dangerous things,

00:24:33.120 but I mean, I, you know,

00:24:34.520 weigh in on the sewage of Twitter quite often 0.90

00:24:37.800 and I'll have some clown come on, you know, 0.99

00:24:39.540 who's gonna talk about how the Jews brought down 0.98

00:24:41.960 the World Trade Center and well,

00:24:44.160 I just block them and move on. 0.50

00:24:45.620 I mean, this is just a nutcase with a keyboard.

00:24:48.340 So, I mean, it's still odious and offensive, but it isn't necessarily going to turn into something major.

00:24:53.300 But I mean, how do you distinguish between what's just the lone crazy out there or what's part of a larger thing that could lead to a bigger problem?

00:25:00.300 Well, I mean, I think you have to be discerning and careful when you look at and when you evaluate examples of anti-Semitism.

00:25:06.940 And in my book, for example, I discuss what I describe

00:25:10.460 as four different kinds of anti-Semitism, 0.99

00:25:13.200 ranging from incivility, stupidity on the internet, 1.00

00:25:18.260 the kind of thing you just described, which is unpleasant. 0.99

00:25:21.620 I mean, no one's saying it's okay to do that.

00:25:23.600 It's not okay to do that.

00:25:25.080 It's unpleasant, and of course, it can lead to other things.

00:25:28.080 But nonetheless, let's see it for what it is,

00:25:31.260 which is often very inconsequential acts 1.00

00:25:34.220 of incivility perpetrated by silly, stupid, ignorant people. 1.00

00:25:39.460 So that's one kind. 1.00

00:25:40.660 But then, of course, there's other kinds as well.

00:25:42.780 And you can go through to the ultimate most dangerous kind,

00:25:46.880 which is when anti-Semitism of some kind

00:25:49.340 or other is incorporated in government policy,

00:25:53.300 in legislation, in statutes.

00:25:55.100 And that's a whole different kettle of fish.

00:25:57.060 There's a range of things.

00:25:58.980 And I think you have to accept that it's a range.

00:26:01.460 Look at what's happened.

00:26:02.820 Be discerning, be proportionate in your response and not treat everything, Corey, as if it's the end of the world.

00:26:10.780 Yeah. So the most, I guess, divisive problem or area we have going on right now is his views on Israel, Zionism, whether or not the stage is sustainable as it is.

00:26:23.480 I mean, that's dividing even the Jewish community.

00:26:25.720 Very much so.

00:26:26.340 You go a lot into detail on that one, but it seems to be one of those ones that feels almost insurmountable as well.

00:26:33.940 I mean, you brought up Kashmir, you know, up in northern Pakistan, which probably my children will be watching disputes going on up there as well.

00:26:41.880 But it is our modern or our largest issue right now.

00:26:46.060 Well, it's a hugely important issue.

00:26:47.580 And it's one, as you know, it's been getting worse in recent times.

00:26:53.340 And it's an issue that divides the Jewish community very severely.

00:26:56.340 and not just the Jewish community.

00:26:58.340 But one thing I feel very strongly about is

00:27:01.500 that to criticize what some Israeli policy, for example,

00:27:06.460 to criticize the extensive settlement of the West Bank

00:27:09.720 by Israel is not to be anti-Semitic.

00:27:13.160 There's a tendency particularly among some parts

00:27:15.420 of the Jewish community to conflate anti-Zionism,

00:27:18.920 opposition to certain policies of the Israeli government,

00:27:21.980 particularly let's say the West Bank, with anti-Semitism.

00:27:25.260 I reject that. It's perfectly acceptable to criticize government policy and government actions, and that does not equate with being anti-Semitic, although many people do make that equation.

00:27:37.380 Well, I mean, there's political merit. You know, as a guy who talks about a lot of political things, if you want to try and shut down a conversation, that's a good way just to say, well, we don't want to go there because that would be anti-Semitic if you dare criticize that.

00:27:48.340 But, I mean, every government should be able to be critiqued.

00:27:52.880 But do you think perhaps traditional, then, Jewish support for Zionism might be fading?

00:28:00.880 I mean, you talk a lot about that, the different types of Jews.

00:28:03.660 I mean, whether they're secular, whether they're religious.

00:28:06.260 A large part of what the sticking point is, is, of course, the Temple Mount.

00:28:09.420 I mean, the Second Coming isn't going to happen unless the Jews are there at that time, 1.00

00:28:13.980 at least as far as the scriptures are concerned.

00:28:16.800 So I would imagine observant Jews are going to be very unwilling to give up on that.

00:28:22.100 But at the same time, when you're getting a larger move towards secularism, perhaps that supports crumbling.

00:28:27.680 Well, I mean, let's look at two communities.

00:28:29.340 Let's look at first Jews in Israel.

00:28:32.380 And even within Israel, as we've seen recently, there's tremendous division about the acceptability of various government policies, including settlement of the West Bank.

00:28:42.500 Not all Jews in Israel favor extending or even maintaining existing West Bank settlements.

00:28:48.320 But if you go to the United States, where almost half the world's Jews live, within 0.99

00:28:54.260 the United States, I think there's growing opposition, particularly among young Jews,

00:28:58.980 too much of what Israel has done and is doing.

00:29:03.100 Young Jews tend to be more secular. 0.54

00:29:05.400 They tend to be on the whole left of center.

00:29:07.840 They tend to be supporters, for example, of movements like Black Lives Matter, and when

00:29:13.800 they see what they regard as human rights violations by Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians, they

00:29:19.280 don't like it, and they ask themselves, well, can I really support, as my family history,

00:29:24.960 for example, is traditionally supported, can I really support the state that does this

00:29:28.940 kind of thing?

00:29:29.940 I wouldn't do it within my own country, the United States, and I don't want to do it vis-a-vis

00:29:34.460 Israel.

00:29:35.460 real prospect of much of the support of the U.S. Jewish community for Israel, which has been

00:29:41.700 extremely important to Israel over a long period of time, very important, fading, and that's a

00:29:46.580 dangerous thing for the state of Israel. So, I mean, you talked about a lot of

00:29:52.420 interesting things, like the potential of going back. People mention that often, like Morocco,

00:29:56.740 there was a large Jewish population that was getting along quite well with a dominant Muslim

00:30:02.260 culture and leadership. So, I mean, it is possible historically. And you're saying that even, you

00:30:08.080 know, some of the older Moroccans are, you know, wistfully looking back on the days of when they 1.00

00:30:13.380 had, you know, the Jewish brethren there. But are the younger Muslim kids, as you state a lot,

00:30:20.120 most of them have never even met a Jew, and they're basing their opinions on social media

00:30:24.620 or portrayals, and that's not helping either. Yeah, that's true. I mean, there was a very

00:30:29.280 important large Jewish population in Morocco,

00:30:32.100 which essentially left Morocco at the end of the 1940s

00:30:35.600 after the creation of the State of Israel and went to Israel.

00:30:38.560 Where, by the way, they weren't very well treated

00:30:40.480 for quite some time.

00:30:41.880 They were Sephardi Jews, and the Ashkenazi Jews

00:30:44.660 from Eastern Europe looked down upon them and regarded them

00:30:47.500 as on the whole inferior people.

00:30:49.280 So that's a whole other story.

00:30:51.260 But meanwhile, the Moroccans, the State of Morocco in particular,

00:30:55.180 has been, I think, quite wistful about the departure

00:30:59.360 of the Jews, particularly older Moroccans.

00:31:01.540 And the Moroccan government, the king of Morocco,

00:31:04.900 has been very favorable to Israel and very favorable

00:31:07.980 to the Jewish tradition that remains in Morocco.

00:31:12.280 So it's a complicated picture, Corey.

00:31:14.320 And what I might add, for example, is it tends to be a reaction

00:31:18.040 sometimes that Arabs and Jews are natural-born enemies

00:31:22.920 at each other's throats given half the chance.

00:31:25.120 This is not the case.

00:31:26.660 There are many similarities between the two religions,

00:31:29.360 and historically, often the Muslims have sheltered Jews

00:31:32.940 who had to flee other parts of the world.

00:31:35.180 So it's a complicated history,

00:31:37.360 and a lot of the sort of shibboleths

00:31:40.400 that are put around are simply not true.

00:31:42.280 They're just that, shibboleths, not true.

00:31:44.960 Well, yeah, as you said, though,

00:31:46.100 and part of the historic problem is the fluidity, though,

00:31:48.660 of acceptance of Jews among populations,

00:31:51.280 you know, decade by decade or generation by generation.

00:31:54.360 Let's say, for example, you know, Morocco has been sounding very friendly and a Jewish population moved back.

00:31:59.040 But we don't know if another three election cycles or a revolution comes along and suddenly you're getting chased back.

00:32:05.260 Like you can see where the value of Israel as one sanctuary could hold a lot of appeal to Jews.

00:32:11.020 Well, that is the fundamental idea.

00:32:12.640 By the way, I don't think any Moroccan Jews or very few are going to leave.

00:32:16.060 We're in Israel now.

00:32:17.080 We're going to leave and go back.

00:32:18.220 That's very unlikely.

00:32:18.860 But yes, I mean, the fundamental idea of Israel, of course,

00:32:22.080 was giving a people who had been chased around the world

00:32:26.400 and persecuted around the world for a long time a place of refuge.

00:32:29.860 That is the compelling idea.

00:32:31.860 It's an extremely attractive idea, and, of course,

00:32:35.680 it was given a huge moral force following World War II

00:32:39.260 and the Holocaust.

00:32:40.560 It was a hugely kind of moral debt that the world seemed

00:32:44.140 to think or thought had to be paid by supporting the creation

00:32:48.240 the state of Israel. Very compelling and attractive idea. But the reality on the ground now,

00:32:53.440 after such a long period of time, is somewhat different. It's more complicated. It's more

00:32:58.660 nuanced. And the morals, the rights and wrongs are not as obvious as they once were.

00:33:04.120 Well, and something of an irony you point out in the book is Israel was actually kind of provided

00:33:08.180 a place that helped with anti-Semitic governments around the world because they would say, well,

00:33:12.660 we can chase these guys out of here. They got somewhere to go. Let's somewhere to put these

00:33:16.480 Jews and get them out of our own hair. Thus, not for the next, necessarily best of intentions, 1.00

00:33:21.440 but a lot of nations were supporting the ongoing state of Israel.

00:33:25.300 Yes, I think that's true. That's a historical fact.

00:33:29.180 Which is unfortunate. So, I mean, getting, as you said, it's nuanced, it's complicated. I mean,

00:33:34.280 you talk a bit about it, you know, the different types of states or possible visions for Israel,

00:33:38.440 like a solution-based approach is really difficult on this still, though. I mean,

00:33:42.380 What could you envision that might fix this?

00:33:45.280 Stephen Winick- Well, it is very difficult.

00:33:46.780 And of course, a lot of people of goodwill have tried

00:33:49.620 for a long time to figure out some way whereby the problem

00:33:53.080 of the Middle East, the problem of Israel, Palestine,

00:33:55.620 the West Bank, all of that could be fixed.

00:33:57.740 I mean, most recently, for quite some time now,

00:34:00.820 was the so-called two-state solution,

00:34:03.240 whereby there'd be a Palestinian state,

00:34:04.840 a proper standalone, autonomous state with its own sovereignty,

00:34:09.420 and of course Israel.

00:34:10.420 That's been tried, various people have endorsed it.

00:34:14.580 It hasn't really gone anywhere and I think the general view is it's been quite subverted

00:34:19.140 now by settlements, Jewish settlements from the West Bank.

00:34:23.140 An idea that I think has some merit, I call the Canadian solution, although it's not original

00:34:27.880 to me, is the idea of a federation.

00:34:31.020 Two states, yes, but a federation over the top of them and guaranteeing as between the

00:34:36.160 two states, the Arab state and the Israeli state, freedom of movement, certain economic

00:34:41.360 freedoms, human rights and so on, and within that federation, each individual state would

00:34:47.200 have huge autonomy and power, much the same as we have in this country.

00:34:51.380 You as an Albertan might push back a bit against that, I'm not sure, but you know what I'm

00:34:55.900 talking about.

00:34:56.900 Now that would be enormously difficult to construct.

00:35:00.660 It would require a lot of goodwill and a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of careful thought,

00:35:05.800 it's not impossible, I don't think. And what I do think is that the situation in the Middle East,

00:35:11.000 the situation on the West Bank, Palestine, Gaza, and so on, is going from bad to worse. We see that.

00:35:17.720 It's untenable. It's extremely dangerous, and only misery and destruction can result from it.

00:35:23.960 And so the world has to try and do what it can to figure out some way to fix this or ameliorate it.

00:35:29.640 Yeah, and it is radiating outwards. I mean, whether fairly or unfairly, we've got incentivized people protesting against Israel, say, in North American universities. And unfortunately, sometimes that is translating to abuse upon Jewish students who had nothing to do with it. We see those incidents or hear of them occasionally. I mean, there's tensions that spread outside of Israel and into other areas that really shouldn't be impacted so directly by it.

00:35:54.520 Stephen Winick- Yes, I think that's true.

00:35:56.180 And there is a kind of a tainting effect goes on.

00:35:58.900 I mean, one crisis tends to lead to other crises.

00:36:02.180 So I think the world needs, I mean, the world now is so

00:36:04.580 distracted by what's happening in Ukraine,

00:36:07.780 by what's happening in China, Russia, and all of that,

00:36:10.580 that the tension that sometimes was focused

00:36:12.700 on the Middle East seems to have shifted.

00:36:15.200 But the Middle East remains a real danger point, 1.00

00:36:17.420 a real flash point, and also a place where,

00:36:19.840 in my judgment, this is controversial.

00:36:22.360 Many people strongly disagree with me, but nonetheless, a place where you do see serious

00:36:28.560 infringements of human rights, particularly the human rights of the Palestinians, and

00:36:33.120 that needs to be dealt with in some way or other, but it'll be hard, Corey.

00:36:37.480 It'll be hard.

00:36:39.000 Well, and we'd have to be careful.

00:36:40.620 I mean, Israel is a nuclear power, and if things really broke out into a very large 0.87

00:36:45.560 scale, I mean, I think everybody's armed enough, again, that it wouldn't be a six-day war

00:36:51.380 this time, unless something terrible happened. And we could really see things get a heck of a

00:36:55.500 lot worse over there. Yeah, I mean, the big fear there, of course, is a war between Israel and

00:36:59.620 Iran, which is from time to time seems to be a possibility. But I would make a prediction about

00:37:06.080 that. Yeah, we're just gonna hope for the best on that front. So I mean, you spoke a little

00:37:12.600 broadly to just on a bigger issue altogether. I mean, it's kind of a societal thing. It's

00:37:16.400 something for those of us in the comfort of North America and Europe is identity politics. So I

00:37:20.540 I mean, some people, I guess it's a bit of a natural tendency towards tribalism or our team and this and that.

00:37:27.840 And people are embracing Jewish identity, I think, just to stand out because they want to say, well, I'm this or I'm that and I'm oppressed or I'm not. 0.66

00:37:35.500 And it's a trend. It's troubling outside of just the matter of Judaism.

00:37:41.640 I mean, identity politics is really sweeping the world.

00:37:47.800 Everybody is seeking to very carefully define their own particular identity, which is fine.

00:37:54.140 I have no difficulty with that, and there are good reasons for doing it in some cases.

00:37:57.760 But what I regret, this is often done at the expense of what makes us all the same, what binds us together.

00:38:05.960 I mean, there are things that separate us for sure, and that's fine.

00:38:09.580 There are also things that bind us together, common objectives that we have, common problems we face no matter what our identity is.

00:38:17.080 And what I regret is that identity politics, as it grows and becomes more and more powerful, as it is doing, it tends to obscure and hide and devalue what makes us all the same, what binds us together, and what are the common problems we have we need to solve together.

00:38:33.840 i mean climate change is an obvious example climate change doesn't care what race you are

00:38:38.880 what color you are or anything like that it's a problem everybody faces and we shouldn't embrace 1.00

00:38:45.600 ideas that make it more difficult for us to deal with issues like that i mean i sometimes like to

00:38:50.720 remind people of what barack obama said i think it was in 2004 in a speech to the democratic

00:38:56.480 national convention when he said there's no such this is barack obama speaking there's no such

00:39:01.920 thing i'm paraphrasing there's no such thing as white americans there's no such thing as

00:39:06.880 black americans there's no such thing as latino americans there are only americans well that was

00:39:12.880 less than 20 years ago but it now sounds almost medieval because people don't think like that

00:39:18.000 regrettably they think of their particular identity and they repudiate any attempt by

00:39:23.280 people who don't share that identity to comment on it to relate to it to say that they have some

00:39:29.840 I'm understanding and sympathy with it.

00:39:31.500 They don't want to know.

00:39:32.620 It's lived experience.

00:39:33.620 You haven't lived my experience.

00:39:35.000 You can't understand me at all.

00:39:36.420 I reject that.

00:39:38.940 Yes, well, what we need is at least,

00:39:41.260 at the very least, more frank discussions

00:39:42.700 in tender areas, as you said.

00:39:45.020 Yes, a lot of what you've covered is controversial,

00:39:46.620 and I imagine some of the feedback you've gotten

00:39:49.860 as a man of Jewish descent has been heeded.

00:39:52.460 That's part of the fun of being in the public sphere.

00:39:54.940 But if we don't want to talk about it,

00:39:56.300 we're certainly not going to find any solutions.

00:39:58.080 Well, that's right.

00:39:58.560 I mean, above all else, Corey, we have to talk about it and we have to listen to what the other person has to say and not reject what they say just because we don't like them.

00:40:09.160 We don't like where they've come from.

00:40:10.560 We have to listen to what they have to say and we have to kind of reach where possible a compromise.

00:40:15.320 And if somebody is putting forward a bad argument, the way to respond to that bad argument is not to shut that person down, not to de-platform them, not to denigrate them, but to tell them, to give them a good argument that replaces their bad argument.

00:40:31.500 And that's dialogue.

00:40:33.580 That's how civilization advances.

00:40:35.720 That's how a liberal democratic country like ours survives.

00:40:39.260 Well, and there's a lot of fantastic stuff packed into that book that you put together.

00:40:43.740 So I really appreciate that.

00:40:45.320 and you're coming on to talk to us about it.

00:40:47.340 Before I let you go, where can people find a copy

00:40:49.460 should they want to get out and get theirs?

00:40:51.040 Well, they can find it at the usual places, Corey.

00:40:52.980 They can find it at the local bookstore.

00:40:54.580 They can get it from Amazon.

00:40:55.920 They can get it directly from the publisher's

00:40:57.760 Sutherland House.

00:40:59.300 I hope they can download it on their Kindle.

00:41:02.400 Hopefully, it's not that difficult to get.

00:41:05.440 Excellent.

00:41:05.940 Yeah, there's lots of ways to get the books now.

00:41:07.640 You don't even have to leave the house anymore.

00:41:09.560 Well, thank you again,

00:41:11.600 and hopefully maybe we'll talk down the road,

00:41:13.460 and it'll be over having seen a breakthrough

00:41:15.860 and some great solutions on this.

00:41:18.080 Well, that would be wonderful, Corey.

00:41:19.120 Thanks, I enjoyed this.

00:41:20.300 Okay, thank you.

00:41:21.200 Okay, bye-bye.

00:41:22.220 Bye.

00:41:23.300 So just a reminder again, that was Philip Slayton.

00:41:25.600 He is the author of Anti-Semitism, 1.00

00:41:28.020 An Ancient Hatred in the Age of Identity Politics.

00:41:30.700 And it was, it's a really good read.

00:41:32.580 It's very well sourced

00:41:33.940 and it's a lot of food for thought.

00:41:36.520 I mean, I don't necessarily have to agree

00:41:38.320 with every point or such,

00:41:40.300 but he's digging into areas

00:41:41.280 that people don't want to talk about.

00:41:42.560 I mean, Zionism, you don't get much more contentious than that.

00:41:46.020 And to some people, it's a very deeply held conviction.

00:41:50.080 And you've got two very dedicated groups, both dedicated to wanting that same piece of land.

00:41:56.740 And whether there's going to be a solution, I mean, eventually I think there will.

00:42:00.380 But how long and how painful will it be to get to that?

00:42:04.980 I don't know.

00:42:05.580 But it's a good, frank discussion in that book.

00:42:08.140 And I do recommend it as a read.

00:42:10.620 It's worthwhile.

00:42:12.560 All right. Well, let's turn the page and talk about some other news things rather than some world issues. Speaking of a zero risk world, you know, there's some of the stuff, trends. So, you know, we talked about identity politics. It's a trend I really, yeah, can't stand. It's divisive. It's harming us on so many levels in so many ways.

00:42:31.580 uh but uh this this idea that somehow if the government could just manage us strongly enough

00:42:38.860 we won't come to any kind of risk that's where why when there was a pandemic going on it was

00:42:43.240 just assumed that the solution to the pandemic is government it's more government it's more

00:42:47.300 control it's them somehow they can control a disease as I said earlier in the show they can't

00:42:52.820 even control their payroll system they can't control a disease but we see everything the

00:42:59.920 fun police, too. They come after everything, anything you enjoy. I mean, we saw that, too,

00:43:04.860 as Health Canada is saying, now, you shouldn't have any alcohol whatsoever, ever, but if you

00:43:11.340 must, no more than two drinks a week. Come on. Look, and again, I've been frank about it. I can't

00:43:19.260 drink. I mean, I drank a lot, a hell of a lot, used my privileges, got to the point where I had

00:43:24.840 to fully dry out. I'm an alcoholic. I accept that. I know that. I'm recovered. I haven't had a drink

00:43:29.480 in four years and I won't again. But other people can and they can enjoy it. And I have no problem

00:43:35.940 with that. And I understand that maybe they had six or seven and got tipsy, but you know what?

00:43:41.020 They had fun. And oh, yes, I know it wasn't the healthiest thing, but not everything has to be

00:43:45.520 perfectly healthy. Ice cream. There's no need to eat ice cream. It's definitely not necessarily

00:43:51.400 good for you in any sort of way, but it's a matter of moderation and risk benefit. Okay. Yes,

00:43:58.240 it's not the healthiest, but I'm going to enjoy some of it because I want to sacrifice a little

00:44:02.140 more, a bit of my health without hurting it. So what I'm getting at with this one is this story

00:44:06.360 saying, uh, sledding, they're going after people on toboggans. Now, yeah, this is the public health

00:44:11.660 agency data. And they're saying it's even riskier than snowboarding. You know that we know that.

00:44:16.400 Yes. I mean, how many people have we known as kids, you'd go down a stupid slope and a kid 1.00

00:44:19.740 broke his arm because they smacked into a tree on a toboggan or they smacked into each other or 0.99

00:44:23.460 or flipped, or older people had some drinks, got onto a big inner tube, went down, and threw their

00:44:28.740 back out. Or even sometimes, I'm certain, some people have been killed tobogganing. We want to

00:44:34.720 do things to reduce the risk. Let's try and avoid tobogganing while drunk. Let's not stick your

00:44:40.100 kids on a toboggan slope that crosses a road or has a bunch of trees on it. But let's have a little

00:44:45.200 fun, you guys. Come on. Why have you got to come down on everything? I mean, talk about Canadian 1.00

00:44:49.360 traditions. I am not a fan of winter, you know. Hey, and I grew up in Banff. I was a skier. I was

00:44:55.800 a mediocre ski jumper. I enjoyed a whole lot of ski jumping. By the way, a side note, check it out.

00:45:01.160 There's a female ski jumper. Her name is a ski jumper. I'm so awful with names, but if you Google

00:45:05.400 it, look at it. She's fantastic. She won the world championship. She's only 19 years old, and she won

00:45:10.380 the female set the world record ski flying championships. I know I bounce around on this

00:45:14.040 show. That's the way it goes. 222 meters, that young lady jumped, and just watch the video.

00:45:19.000 It's amazing. She flies. Fantastic sport. I hope it starts to really make a comeback in Canada and

00:45:25.260 grow. It's a lot of fun. It's great for kids. It's not as risky as people would think it is.

00:45:28.800 But getting back to this, there is a little bit of risk. Sure there is. That's part of the element.

00:45:32.180 That's part of the excitement for the viewer and the jumper. So many things. How many things do we

00:45:37.100 enjoy in life that come with a little bit of degree of risk that we think about and we accept

00:45:42.200 that I will accept that there's this bit of risk so I can have this bit of enjoyment. So yes, you

00:45:47.740 can reduce your chances of injury from ski jumping to zero by not ski jumping. You'll never get to

00:45:53.060 enjoy it. You can reduce the risk of tobogganing injuries to zero by never doing it. But what the

00:45:59.000 hell else are you going to do in winter? As I was getting to when I started with, I hate winter. I

00:46:02.720 can't stand it. I'm sick of the slippery sidewalks. I'm sick of the dark nights, the cold, the wet,

00:46:09.100 the brown trees. Yeah, I know. What kind of Canadian am I? It's just the way it is. And the

00:46:14.060 older I get, the grumpier I get, the more I dislike winter. But if there's things that'll

00:46:17.480 make it a little more fun for kids and others to get out toboggan? Let them do it. But no,

00:46:21.880 these fun police, they put out these studies and talk about how dangerous it is. And some sort of

00:46:26.740 marching mamas and Karens are probably going to stop their kids from tobogganing and enjoying 1.00

00:46:30.040 themselves and winter because of that crap. Come on, guys. We don't need government 1.00

00:46:34.180 in every aspect of our lives. There's no zero risk world. Quit trying to achieve it.

00:46:41.160 We don't be stupid either. Or maybe do be stupid. I mean, come on, think about it. One of our 1.00

00:46:45.520 problems has been not enough people die of stupidity anymore. They don't. In fact, they 1.00

00:46:51.140 breed. The dumber they are, the more kids they tend to have. And they get government jobs for 1.00

00:46:55.820 welfare. You know, the reason we came and evolved the way we did, because you know, you had the

00:47:02.340 nomadic people of a million years ago, or 100,000 years ago, or whatever it was. And you know what,

00:47:07.620 if there was a moron in the tribe, chances were he was going to eat a bad plant or fall off a cliff, 1.00

00:47:11.720 never had the chance to have a kid. So eventually the smarter ones kept rising and breeding with 1.00

00:47:16.720 smarter ones. Well, we're going the other way now. Now, we don't want to go into eugenics and 0.95

00:47:21.660 knocking off the stupidity purposely, but, you know, maybe we can take some of the warning labels 0.99

00:47:27.320 off the bleach. That's all I'm saying. Sometimes a problem will take care of itself. I mean, 0.99

00:47:33.600 well, you know, I'll talk in a similar way. It's a statement I use. I see a poll showed that a

00:47:41.580 majority of Canadians, you know, I'm going to bounce into a whole new issue here. Majority of 0.98

00:47:45.440 Canadians now are supporting a reinstating the death penalty for murder. I'm not with the majority

00:47:52.020 here. I know as a conservative minded person, you know, how can you not support? Because I don't

00:47:59.120 trust the damn government. I'm more libertarian than conservative when it comes to that. I don't 0.99

00:48:02.680 trust the government to get it right. Like I said, like I pointed out, they can't even pay

00:48:07.220 themselves. I don't want them with the power of life and death over our citizens. And when I have

00:48:13.060 those debates with people online, they say, oh, but look at the cases where it's 100% for sure.

00:48:16.200 Really? Like David Milgaard? I mean, he came very close to being hung. Likewise, people say with DNA,

00:48:22.980 it proves it beyond a doubt. Really? You think it's impossible for DNA to get contaminated?

00:48:28.940 If you look it up, there's some cases, I believe it was in New England in the United States. I

00:48:33.480 watched a big documentary on that. It was frightening. There's like a central crime lab

00:48:37.320 in Massachusetts, it was, but it was being run by a completely incompetent doctor. She was screwing 0.99

00:48:42.700 up samples and making a mess of things all over the place for years. People's lives were in the

00:48:48.260 balance. This is criminal lab work. And the samples were not reliable. The integrity was lost.

00:48:55.820 So, no, we cannot have 100% certainty in these cases.

00:49:01.500 When it comes to execution, there's no going back if you, oh, geez, we were wrong.

00:49:09.420 You can't dig him up and reanimate him.

00:49:11.660 If he's locked up, and I want to see true life sentences.

00:49:14.040 Hey, I want justice reform.

00:49:15.580 I want bail reform.

00:49:16.840 I want the repeat violent criminals locked up for life.

00:49:19.260 And I mean life. 0.99

00:49:20.040 You're a repeat violent criminal. 1.00

00:49:21.280 You've murdered a couple people and you're 20 years old. 1.00

00:49:23.100 I don't care if it takes 80 years for you in prison. 1.00

00:49:25.460 And I want you in prison until you die. 0.97

00:49:27.380 But at least if it turns out 40 years from now, we did find out, oh, geez, we did screw that one up. 0.97

00:49:32.020 Okay, well, you still got a few years left outside of prison.

00:49:34.080 We can settle on it.

00:49:34.780 But if we've executed them, we can't do anything about it.

00:49:38.500 So, yes, I just can't support returning to the death penalty.

00:49:41.960 I can't.

00:49:42.360 How can you say that you support that and say you don't trust the government at the same time?

00:49:48.240 That's the biggest thing in the world you can trust them with then. 0.86

00:49:51.240 I don't want them having the ability to kill me enough. 0.99

00:49:54.260 so uh you know but getting into what i was talking about letting the stupid or taking the labels off 0.99

00:49:58.920 the bleach i was just saying too yeah if they're bad enough criminal and so on i mean i wouldn't 0.98

00:50:03.560 be too sad if you know they left their shoelaces on their shoes when they were left alone in the

00:50:08.120 cell as well if they want to take care of things themselves it's not our place to get in the way

00:50:11.700 of them there's some of the irony we get such a strong suicide watch to uh some of the worst

00:50:16.240 people we've got that are incarcerated in our facilities but at the same time the government's

00:50:20.200 bending over backwards to provide medically assisted death to everybody who is feeling a

00:50:25.620 little depressed for a while or having a bad month, or even sometimes the case of minors. 0.83

00:50:30.420 And the priorities of this government are screwed up. But again, remember that this is a government

00:50:33.920 that doesn't value human life the right way all the time. So don't give them the power to take

00:50:40.220 those lives, even in the criminal thing. I know, I know we've seen cases where the guy is saying,

00:50:45.840 I did it. I'm a loser. I'm a scumbag. I'm a murderer. I'm a pedophile. There is virtually 0.99

00:50:51.540 no doubt. Well, that's fine. Let's get a prison facility. Let's stick it up in the Northwest 0.85

00:50:55.540 Territory. Let's weld that door shut and never have that person out reoffending ever again. 1.00

00:51:01.440 But don't give the government the power to kill people. They're too stupid. They're too inept. 1.00

00:51:06.200 And it's too big a power for them. Let's see. Here's another one. This ought to stir some 1.00

00:51:12.700 things up. You know, there's a parliamentary committee that's recommending the cabinet

00:51:15.760 embraces closer ties to Taiwan. You know, if we're talking about sticking points with Zionism and

00:51:20.700 Israel, well, China and Taiwan, of course, is the huge one. This is the one where the Chinese 1.00

00:51:25.360 interference comes in the most, where the Chinese get upset most often in the most vigorous way is

00:51:31.140 any time any country recognizes Taiwan's independence. That's when China gets upset.

00:51:37.080 And Canada has been so limp-wristed, so weak when it comes to China. That's what we've seen.

00:51:41.000 politicians, Trudeau in particular, and over the years, actually, Canada has been notoriously

00:51:48.420 weak when it comes to dealing with China. But in this case, having this is a case of a commons vote

00:51:55.460 endorsing Taiwan's bid for membership in the World Health Organization. I know we have a

00:51:59.560 separate discussion, you know, careful what you wish for Taiwan. But either way, it certainly adds

00:52:04.600 a level of the credibility of Taiwan as an independent state. The Chinese are going to 1.00

00:52:08.760 be ticked off about this. And good on them. And it's good. I mean, it's good to see a little bit

00:52:13.340 of backbone being shown from a committee for what it's worth on an international issue, particularly

00:52:20.640 when it deals with China, because we just haven't seemed to be able to find the courage to be able

00:52:25.700 to do that in the past. So, hey, good on you. We'll see what happens. You know, maybe Trudeau

00:52:30.480 will get publicly chewed out by Xi Jinping again, as he did at that other world gathering.

00:52:37.180 and, uh, embarrass himself. Uh, yeah, I'll break down that actually that, that I should see some

00:52:43.700 more of this stuff on that, that poll. See, I'm offside with Albertan sometimes 62% of support

00:52:47.980 capital punishment and, uh, Saskatchewan, Manitoba next to 60%. Cause we're, we're all provinces are

00:52:53.020 dealing with some pretty high crime rates these days, Ontario and BC 58 and 55 in, uh, Atlantic

00:52:59.540 Canada, Quebec's where it's the lowest 43%. But I think that's just cause they want to, they don't

00:53:04.920 want to execute. They just want to deport their criminals and send them out for the rest of the

00:53:08.880 country to deal with, kind of like they do with their credit card bills. Yeah, here's a neat one.

00:53:15.420 A report from Environment and Climate Change Canada said Ontario and Quebec have the poorest

00:53:18.960 water quality in Canada. Okay, that's unfortunate. In fact, over 20 years, they showed, yeah, from

00:53:26.080 2002 to 2020, you'd think with modern tech and everything, there'd be improvement. No,

00:53:29.400 not a single site showed improved water quality. Alberta is constantly in headline news

00:53:33.960 because of our oil sands stuff and the settling ponds.

00:53:37.700 So you've got to remember, these are tailings ponds.

00:53:39.720 There's not nice water in them, but I mean, it's not pure cyanide either, guys.

00:53:44.180 You know, this big leak that everybody's ripping their hair out about that happened recently,

00:53:47.780 it was the equivalent of two swimming pools over the course of months.

00:53:50.520 And again, we want to have zero leaks. Fair enough. That's the goal. That's the intention.

00:53:53.440 But look at all the crap that Alberta's dealt with over that. 1.00

00:53:58.080 Meanwhile, Ontario and Quebec have the worst water quality in Canada. 0.99

00:54:02.920 And guess why?

00:54:03.960 Because they dump their raw sewage in their rivers, and they've been doing it for over 100 years.

00:54:09.180 We're the bad guys out here, where we have 101 levels of environmental monitoring and cleaning and reclamation requirements and things like that.

00:54:18.400 But Ontario, Quebec, and Victoria, by the way, the other little left coast there, dump raw sewage into the waterways. 0.83

00:54:25.540 Raw, straight out, corn and all, guys.

00:54:28.440 But we're the bad guys.

00:54:29.980 Keep that in mind, the usual double standard of things.

00:54:33.960 Let's see, another thing, Canada Revenue Agency report,

00:54:36.220 you have found that the underground economy

00:54:37.460 is gonna continue to grow

00:54:38.620 without consistent federal surveillance.

00:54:40.880 Well, that's what I worry about.

00:54:41.660 You see, they're calling for more government,

00:54:42.820 but of course, that's what they do.

00:54:44.760 They showed all cash and other tax avoidance measures

00:54:48.380 increased in the last five years by 50%.

00:54:50.400 You know, it's interesting,

00:54:52.420 because that also shows people losing faith in government

00:54:54.980 because they, you know, you hear from the left,

00:54:58.740 oh, I'd be happy to go pay my taxes

00:55:00.540 because it gives so many great social programs.

00:55:02.360 It's good for everybody. 0.86

00:55:03.760 Most people are saying, no, the government's a big parasite, and the more I can avoid giving 0.94

00:55:07.240 to them, the better. They don't trust the government. They don't like the government. 0.95

00:55:10.180 They don't want to support the government. They might like the one party that's in power. They

00:55:13.660 still don't like the government as a whole. So that avoidance is going to keep happening because

00:55:17.120 there's no trust or liking for the government. I think it's kind of healthy to have that distrust.

00:55:21.740 Finally, I'll finish up. Let's look all the way over to our East Coast and PEI. They have an

00:55:27.100 election coming actually, April 3rd, their provincial one. And lo and behold, healthcare

00:55:33.860 is their top issue. Yes, this is a full trifecta of it. Surgeons have been leaving and people can't

00:55:40.780 get a family doctor. They're having some serious issues out there in PEI. Well, yes, but then

00:55:47.380 which province doesn't? I was dealing with a liberal fart catcher online the other day about

00:55:53.160 that going on about how awful the UCP has been. Alberta's got waiting lists and everything. Well,

00:55:57.020 wait a minute. It's the NDP next door in BC. They got the exact same problems. Every province in

00:56:03.900 Canada has the same problems. When are we going to admit? Speaking of frank talk, speaking of

00:56:08.960 admitting problems and working towards a solution, Canada's healthcare system is broken. It's

00:56:13.940 unsustainable. It's costing us a fortune and the outcomes are getting worse and worse and worse.

00:56:19.160 So we have to change the system. We've spent more money. Quit pointing at whatever your local party

00:56:24.960 is because they can't fix it. They can't. As long as they're working within a broken system,

00:56:29.260 it will never work. Admit that because nobody's found the solution. It's not like you can say,

00:56:35.120 oh, look at that. Over in Ontario, they got no waiting lists at all. So they obviously are doing

00:56:39.860 it right. We got to emulate that. Or in BC, they have all the doctors they need. Well, no, but

00:56:44.540 that's not the case. They're running out of doctors and ambulances in BC under the NDP,

00:56:47.540 and they are in Saskatchewan under the Saskatchewan party

00:56:50.080 and they are in Quebec as well.

00:56:51.980 So it's everywhere, guys, including PEI,

00:56:55.040 where they have an election in a place

00:56:55.980 basically smaller than the city of Calgary,

00:56:58.400 but they have the same problem.

00:57:00.820 So let's start talking about reforming the system,

00:57:04.360 not just some of the policies or parties

00:57:06.720 because it's not going to change.

00:57:08.300 All right, that's enough out of me.

00:57:10.140 It's been a good, interesting day.

00:57:11.820 Thanks for tuning in, guys.

00:57:13.520 Keep an eye on here.

00:57:14.600 The pipeline will be on a little later tonight

00:57:16.680 and check in next week.

00:57:18.740 I will have a whole new show,

00:57:20.060 a whole new guest

00:57:20.680 and we'll have a great

00:57:21.640 whole new conversation.

00:57:22.660 Thanks again.

00:57:23.240 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:57:25.160 Without the CSSA,

00:57:26.420 our gun rights would have been taken

00:57:27.680 long, long ago.

00:57:29.720 These guys are on the front lines

00:57:31.100 helping to draft smart

00:57:33.060 and intelligent firearms,

00:57:34.900 regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:57:37.400 And more importantly,

00:57:38.480 educating the public

00:57:39.460 about how we keep guns

00:57:41.080 out of the hands of the wrong people.

00:57:42.720 We've become a member.

00:57:43.620 It's absolutely worth every penny.

00:57:46.680 You can become a Western Center member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.

Western Standard - March 23, 2023

CMS： 'If citizens don’t trust the electoral system, democracy is in peril.'

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