CMS： In small towns we take care of our own
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Summary
In this episode, Corey talks about the need for more housing in Alberta, and how to get the word out about the lack of homes being built in his hometown of Prittis, Alberta. He also talks about how the community came together to help a family in need of a place to live.
Transcript
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Western Standard here. I am indeed Corey Morgan. And thank you for joining me for what's going to
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be a good, better part of an hour covering some news issues, covering a little ranting on my part
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and some feedback back and forth. I got a great guest coming on, Shane Wenzel of Shane Homes.
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Yes, his father named the company after him. Shane's sort of the principal there these days,
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I believe. And we're going to talk about home building. It's not as dull as you might think.
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Like we've got a real issue going on. We've got a lot of people coming to Canada, settling in,
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which can be great, but we are not coming anywhere close to keeping up with building the housing
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supply to keep all these new Canadians. And a lot of governments are in the way. So Shane can be
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able to really lend a lot of insight into what is it going to take to speed up construction or get
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these things done? And what's been in the way, what's making it so hard to get enough housing
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built in Alberta. So yes, it's good to see you there checking in. Guys, Chris there from North
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Okanagan and Debbie from Tabor used that comment area. Guys, have discussions with each other,
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send questions my way, my guests' way. I don't necessarily read them all out, but I do see them
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all up there and I appreciate it. It reminds me there are people actually viewing this and
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listening and taking part and participating and I'm not just talking to myself like I tend to do
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when I'm driving. So keep it going, guys. Again, as I always like to remind folks, though, keep it
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civil. We can take everything seriously without taking it too personally and getting on each
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other's cases. So I'm going to start with what's got me wound up and something I'm kind of taking
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personally. You know, small towns, they've been getting a bad rap lately. They've been
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demonized by the crazed woke left all over a song. Song. So let me talk about small towns a little
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bit. I live in Prittis, Alberta. It's a little hamlet in the Rocky Mountain foothills just west
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of the city of Calgary. I'm near Calgary, but I'm in the bush there. That's why I get those great
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pictures on my game camera. It's a diverse community. We got people of all sorts of
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backgrounds and such, gives a lot commute to the nearby city of Calgary, but the prime local
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industry is ranching. It's a small town. Now with my house, it has a lot of history behind it. Back
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in 1920, there was actually a sizable tea house built on what's now my property. And when the
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owner of that tea house retired at the start of the 1960s, he sold the home to a couple who had
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eight children. They were big families back then, but that big old tea house was ideal for such a
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big family. Unfortunately, it was also a fire trap. And in 1962, the house burned to the ground
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and a family of 10 people found itself homeless. So then what happened? Well, the community stepped
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up. The father and the older children were actually housed in a nearby community hall,
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and the mother and younger children were sent to Manitoba to live with extended family.
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Neighbors from our area hitched in and they built a modest log home on what's now my property.
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The family's period of homelessness was terrible, but relatively short, and that was thanks to the
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effort of the community. I learned about that part of my home's history when some of those kids
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now who are older than I am came to visit Jane and I at our house, actually. It was a very emotional
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reunion for them, seeing the place where they grew up back then. Now, going further, I used to own
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the local pub in Prentice. I talk about that now and then. If you really want to know everybody in
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your area, run the local pub. I tell you, everybody comes by at one way at a time or another. Now, in
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the last year before I sold that pub, we were robbed twice in a matter of weeks. The cost of
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the theft and the damages caused by them set us back dearly, and it was stressful. It was autumn,
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our slow season was approaching, and I mean, the pub was profitable, but the profits were pretty
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modest, and we were in a tight spot. And within hours of the first robbery, a neighbor actually
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brought over a piece of plywood and cut it for us to secure the door where the glass had been
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smashed out. And the day after that, local children created a bunch of fantastic notes and pictures
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thanking us for running the local business and everything.
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a competitor, held a surprise fundraiser for us.
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And it's hard to find that kind of local support network in a city.
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in Jason Aldean's hit song, Try That in a Small Town.
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The insane left is claiming that line has hidden racist undertones.
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it's insulting to cut down what's actually such a beautiful thing is the protective
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civic spirit of small towns. It has nothing to do with race. I don't doubt small communities
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and countries with people of all races are similar in that sense of community and protecting their
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neighbors. If anything people in cities should be looking at ways to emulate the tight-knit
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communities of small towns. It feels good to know your neighbors to be able to help your neighbors
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and to be able to depend on your neighbors and you don't need to be in a small town to try and
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develop those relationships. Aldine makes a valid point in his song. He mentions things such as
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people being sucker punched on sidewalks or old ladies being carjacked. These things don't happen
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often, if ever, in small towns, as the perpetrators don't tend to get away before locals can get their
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hands on them. In the city, people have been trained to look the other way rather than intervene
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for their neighbors, and it's a bad trend. Yeah, sure, crime happens. My bar was robbed in a small
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town. Should be noted, though, when the criminals were caught, it was found they came in actually
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from the city to rob us. I didn't need a bouncer when I had my pub. The local regulars took care
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of that in my bar and woe be tied and it happened to visiting folks who might think it's a good
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idea to start trouble in a small town bar. It's tiresome watching race baiters trying to find
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evidence of racism in everything. Why go ballistic over a song celebrating and pointing out one of
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the benefits of living in a small town? Why are some people so obsessed with division that they
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have to inject racism into a song where there was none. Look, it might not be for everybody,
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but small towns are great, folks. I'd recommend to anybody who can work remotely to get out of
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the city. Cities are crime-ridden, over-governed, and running out of housing. They're crowded.
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Small town living is cost-effective. The air is fresher. It's safer. And most importantly,
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in small towns, we take care of our own, no matter what color. So I just wanted to get that out,
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guys. You know, I just had to counter that. I know people have been discussing that song and
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the pushback and those heritans on the view talking about how evil and racist that song
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again, no basis, no basis. We just have to inject that division. Guys, I'm here to defend small
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towns. I love them. And they're good people. And it's just ridiculous to watch the woke come down
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on them. All right. So normally at this point, I go to our news editor, Dave, to check in and see
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what's happening in the news, but he is indisposed today. So you're stuck with me right through till
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we get our guest. That's all right. We got lots to talk about. So something that happened this
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week too, which was interesting. I had a package waiting for me. It was actually a picture of it
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was tweeted out by James. This was on my desk says acid tabs for Corey Morgan. I get a lot of
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interesting stuff sent here to the Western standard office. And this was a different one.
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Where the hell does that mean? We've got a bunch of LSD showing up for me. I mean, you know, come
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on my head's already kind of scurry enough as it is what's what's going on either way uh once I got
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here and got to realize the other side of the envelope so I guess they understood there was
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going to be some uh confusion perhaps says don't worry it's for the bees ah yes and the sticker
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so this came from it's a literal acid treatment for mites um from the guys Mike and Pedro at
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Freedom Honey it's called and they've got a good sense of humor on them and they've got a good
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cause. Actually, they raise bees out by Edmonton, and they sell the honey, and it goes towards
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veteran causes. Check them out, actually, on Twitter, and I think they're in other areas of
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social media, Facebook and such, Freedom Honey. And they sent me, because I'd had some bee
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challenges, some acid treatment to try and keep those mites down, because they know I'm a bee
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keeper. So yes, it was a nice surprise. Hey, keep sending things to the office, but you know, be
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careful, guys. I don't want anything that ticks or leaks or any strange stuff like that, but
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I guess, you know, acid tabs are welcome of the right kind. So yeah, nothing fearful or terrible
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happened in here, but lots of good things happening. All right. So let's see. I'm going
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to have a look at the Western Standard website then, and I'll kind of run through what Dave
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would have told us is topping the news today, because that's what's important with our site.
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We'd cover news. We have reporters all over the place and we're writing that stuff up.
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Right now there's the recovery police are hunting a suspect in a deadly hit and run.
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you can see the headline there. So if you know this guy, you know where he is, you know, have a
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look at that picture, have a look at the video, call it in. Somebody was run down and killed and
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he took off, which is always terrible. Another story that always gets to people. Toronto police,
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I saw this one earlier, a canine officer, Bingo, was shot to death during a search for a gunman.
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These police dogs, you know, it's true and it's just a human nature thing. We always, I mean,
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we get upset when anybody, you know, anybody who's not a sociopath gets upset when you hear
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about a death or a shooting of a person, of course. But when it's helpless or when it's
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innocent, like a dog, it really gets to us. You know, this dog was just doing what he felt was
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a good job and running out there and doing it right. And, you know, I imagine the dog gave
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its life and it saved probably a human officer. But let's, you know, recognize that dog's service
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and hope that in this country, so prone to weak sentences to criminals and such that there is a
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very, very strong sentence awaiting the man who killed that unfortunate dog that was doing its
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job there. I hate reading about stories like that, but well, good work, Bingo. Thanks for your
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service. In Edmonton, yeah, there's a video of a high-risk homeless camp, a large one in Edmonton's
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Chinatown that I guess the city is dismantling, so they've had enough. It's one of those difficult
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areas, and again, Arthur Green covers that sort of stuff all the time up in Edmonton. It's happening
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in every city. It's a real problem. Homelessness, tent cities, crime, the addiction, and all that
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goes with it. The difficulty is you can dismantle these large camps, but where do these people go?
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I mean, they need somewhere to go, and we get frustrated. You can't let them just set up large
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tent camp encampments and that lead to social disorder and problems indefinitely. But we do
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have to wonder what's going to happen to these folks. Where are we going to put them? Okay,
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they're out of that homeless camp in Chinatown. They're just going to scatter and set up in
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homeless camps in other areas. And you can keep playing whack-a-mole and chasing them down.
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But in the end, we've got to figure out what to do. I mean, the snow is going to fly in a few
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months. I know nobody likes to hear that right now. But these homeless people are going to need
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shelter. And the reality too, that not enough people discuss though, when it comes to these
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particular encampments, look, the vast majority of the people in them are addicts. Let's not beat
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around that bush. Let's not allow that narrative to go on. Oh, there are people who fell through
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the cracks or people who just couldn't get enough of a living wage. No guys, they're addicts. They
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need treatment. They need help. I'm not saying we should dismiss these people because they're
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addicts. In fact, quite the opposite. We should be going out of our way to find ways to get them
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into treatment because that's where it all starts and ends. As long as they're addicted, nothing else
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is going to work. As I've said before, I don't know if it was on the show or if it was on Twitter,
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but there's truth to it. You just take, so they just need a home. Okay. Put them in a house,
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a bunch of addicts. What do you think you got? Well, you got a crack house. And they're,
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unfortunately, it's just reality, guys. They're going to trash the place. They're going to rip
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the copper wires out of the walls. They're going to sell it and they'll be back out in the streets
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in another homeless camp. You have to treat the addiction first. Likewise, other people say they
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just got to get a job. Well, there's a little more than that. I mean, look at these guys. They are
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not in condition to get a job yet. They are, again, you got to treat the addiction. Until
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that's treated, they can't work for people. They aren't in their right minds. And that's, I was at
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a function last night that was, it was given and a presentation by an addiction treatment center.
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It was very interesting. This one was very family focused. It's such a huge issue. I talk about it
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a lot. I find it's a personal issue. A lot of us are touched by addiction, whether directly or
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indirectly through family. I mean, the amount of overdoses is just horrific. The amount of young
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people we're seeing on the streets with those drugs eating them alive. But what's interesting
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with the success rate of this particular program, I was looking at the presentation from very
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family oriented. They don't just treat the addicts, they treat the surrounding family. Because of
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course, when a person's in the throes of addiction, and it can come from an intact family, a high
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income family or a low income family. It can happen to everybody. And that's, what's got to be
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remembered. But having that network of family around them is so important for recovery later,
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because getting off of the drugs, that's great. Of course, that's where you have to start. But
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the harder part's the long game. The harder part is staying sober. And if you don't have a network
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of people around you, you're going to have a very hard time doing it. Unfortunately,
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the people on the streets often may have lost their family relationships, or maybe they weren't
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in a good family relationship to begin with. We've got a very complicated issue in trying to help
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them. I mean, I know people say, well, just get them in and stuff them into treatment. I'm along
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the lines of compassionate intervention. I agree with that. But remember, this treatment, the place
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I saw the presentation from the average inpatient time is 277 days. It takes a long time, a lot of
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resources and a lot of work to take somebody out of that state and get them functional again. So be
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prepared to spend a lot. I think it's an investment in our society. I tell you, I curse about a lot
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of spending on a lot of things the government does, but I do believe we should spend on those
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who can't take care of themselves. And some people who can't take care of themselves are people who
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are in the throes of advanced addiction. I think we have a moral obligation to help them however
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possible. And you know, we do have laws. I've talked about that before with a family member.
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We had to actually put into a mental health facility for a while and he's out now and settled
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in and that's great. But there is a means to commit people if they're in a state of mind where
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they could hurt themselves or others. Well, you know what? I don't see why we can't declare a lot
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of the people, at least when they're addicted to the point of living on the streets, and just say,
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face it, they're going to hurt themselves if we leave them where they are. We've got nothing to
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lose in intervening. I know it infringes on their liberty, but this is the point where you step over
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that line. Either way, it's an ongoing thing. So yes, Edmonton's dismantled that big, tense city,
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and well, still, it's just a symptom of a bigger problem. All right, let's talk about another
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problem housing, homing and housing in general. And that was just an unintentional segue into it
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because we do have a shortage of housing. The rents are going up. Real estate prices are going
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up. People are having a hard time getting into a home. But at the same time, the people who want
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to build those homes are having a hard time getting the ability to build them fast enough
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to keep up. So I have Shane Wenzel from Shane Homes on. He's been on before and we can perhaps
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find some of the problems and holdups there. So thanks for joining us today, Shane.
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I really appreciate it. I can't remember exactly what the tweet was. It was something that got you quite stirred up a little while back with housing because, I mean, people are pointing fingers all over the place, but they won't address the real issues of why we can't get enough housing built to keep up with demand. Can you kind of expand to start this off?
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Well, yeah, I think what really ticked me off on the original tweet that I'd made was just the housing and affordability task force.
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And I guess why it frustrated me, Corey, is that, you know, here we had a bunch of city experts and other experts get together.
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But the only expert missing from around the table was the housing and development industry and what we could do to support the goal.
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yeah well and i mean it just well again looking we're just going to frustrate ourselves when we
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try to look for common sense in the realm of government and committees and task forces but
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all the same we should still call it out when boy you know if it was a medical thing they would have
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doctors involved in it if it was an energy thing presumably they would have energy producers at
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least contributing if you're looking to build more houses why don't you have the developers
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and home builders giving some input on it well it just seemed to be common sense in my mind and i
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in yours as well and a lot of people's but you know when i look at the task force i guess where
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the biggest frustration came in is it uh it was really dress addressing the social issue and and
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and subsidized housing more than it was you know affordable market housing and uh and trying to
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get through the boom that we're going through in alberta right now being such a popular province
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to move to well that's it we've got a great inter-provincial and uh immigration coming into
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Alberta I mean there's a great future it's a great place to move but we aren't keeping up
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with that demand and these task forces as you said they talk about subsidized housing things
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like that but often they dodge the reality is we need supply it doesn't matter how much you
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subsidize if there are not enough houses you've got a problem yes well and that's what we're
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experiencing right now I mean not only do we have you know supply chain issues we're still managing
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a bit of that you know we're dealing with labor issues as well you know the the quick estimate
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off the top of my head would be that in this province we need about 90 to 100 000 homes built
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and we have the capacity for about 36 000 in total you know that's uh that's a far cry from where we
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need to be to uh to handle the onslaught that we're dealing with and you know we're welcome
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that you know we're obviously happy to have it i should say but you know not at the uh not at the
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expense of people not being able to take their homes or not being able to afford their homes
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and that all comes down to supply so there's two hindrances we you know we've talked about that
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when you've been on the show before uh i'll start with the one that was regulatory now i mean again
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when you you get discussions with people oh well we gotta regulate to keep homes safe and have a
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standard or a certain environmental standard but sometimes i mean there's just too much where can
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we reduce some regulations to make it easier for you guys to keep up and keep building uh well i
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I mean, obviously, you know, simple economics, supply and demand, I mean, we're quelling the
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supply based on an ideology that is just kind of foreign to me. And, you know, to drop that red tape
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associated with that ideology would be the first best place to start. You know, we've taken what I
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like to say is a relatively simple concept of building a house and building an energy efficient
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home, and we've turned it into something just completely complex to the point where it takes
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anywhere, you know, depending on the, depending on the company. I mean, it could take anywhere from
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60 to 150 days longer just to build. I mean, that just seems ridiculous for, you know,
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when you're trying to supply housing to people and in an affordable fashion.
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Well, yeah, and that was something we talked about before. I think it was something along
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the lines of seven years from concept to construction, assuming every hoop has been
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jumped through, every license has been found, and every application has been approved anywhere
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along the way that could get shut down. I mean, there's millions and millions of dollars spent
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before you're even seeing a foundation starting to be poured. And that all comes down to the cost
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of the house in the end. Well, sure it does. And, you know, it's the end user that bears the cost.
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You know, there's this perception that it's the developer, the builder that's absorbing it. Well,
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you can't absorb it at the end of the day when you're used to, you know, purchasing land and
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you're in the ground within a couple of years. Seven years is a tremendously long time. And that
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just seems to be the norm and it's getting longer it seems every day you know so everybody's trying
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their hardest and you know you just kind of long for the days when you had a strong strong
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partnership with planning and the city of calgary and that just seems to have imploded over the last
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12 years so i i see one of the commenters saying when we say homes doing apartments or houses or
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both i mean i imagine when i say home i mean both i mean it's it's all somewhere where somebody can
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be housed and then there's demand for each. Are condos facing the same sort of hindrances and
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trying to get zoned and built as houses are? Sure they are. And I think that's one of the
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many challenges because of course it takes longer to build, but you can put a tremendous amount of
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units out there when you look at some of the high rises in downtown Calgary, but when you look at a
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lot of the four and five story apartment buildings out in New Suburbia, it takes at least a couple
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of years just to get the approvals in place and by then you may have missed the market but in this
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case you could probably build it now and people will just generally come but uh you know why such
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a hold up when you know you've you've taken care of everything that's written in black and white
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you know why are we dealing with you know a file manager who wants to put their own personal touch
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on it i'm just kind of baffled by all of that yeah well so that was an interesting comment and then
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Don Sharp was a commenter as well saying, you know, what's the best way to streamline some of
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these issues with the paperwork inspection and regulation to, you know, delays. So you're saying
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sometimes it is a person just kind of wants to make their own little unique footprint, I guess,
00:21:46.600
on a project. And, you know, in some cases, Corey, that's what's happening. In some cases, you need
00:21:51.460
parks to agree with roads, to agree with the fire department on certain things. And you can
00:21:56.720
understand that they, you know, they want to dot their I's and cross their T's rather. But,
00:22:02.340
But, you know, I mean, ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to provide housing and the longer it takes, the more expensive it gets because every day costs you more and more and more.
00:22:13.640
That's it. I mean, we could just, you know, flick a switch and bring more labor in overnight or there's a lot of challenges.
00:22:18.800
We still have a long game, but some of these regulatory things we should be able to, if the will was there, be able to change those pretty quickly.
00:22:25.620
But you mentioned ideology as well, and it's not unique to Calgary.
00:22:29.480
There seems to be a lot of municipal governments that have a fixation on urban density
00:22:34.100
and fighting outward growth of the cities, and that makes things problematic as well.
00:22:40.120
I mean, inner-city infills are beautiful, but they aren't cheap,
00:22:42.780
and we need stuff a little faster and a little wider if we're really going to meet that need.
00:22:49.940
That's the challenge with the ideology is that it maybe works in theory,
00:22:54.640
but this isn't Europe. We're not building up as much as we are building out. And when you take
00:23:01.600
a look at a lot of the new suburban subdivisions, quite honestly, they're more dense than even some
00:23:08.720
of the inner city neighborhoods. So I mean, you've seen a tremendous shift over the last short while
00:23:14.080
driven by the consumer. And I mean, really, isn't that what we're doing it for? We're trying to
00:23:19.120
build homes for people and we're trying to allow them the choice rather than pigeonholing them
00:23:24.240
inside an ideology. Because if they don't build here in Calgary, if a smaller center like Airdrie
00:23:31.060
or Okotoks or Chestermere are prepared to accept that, then they go there. Which actually leads to
00:23:37.800
less density and all those things that they were ideologically opposed to in the first place. I
00:23:42.040
mean, they're trying to save the world and reduce emissions. Well, we have people commuting a longer
00:23:45.640
distance to get to work because they've been ironically driven out of the city environment
00:23:52.980
And that's ultimately what you're going to start to see happen, I think,
00:23:56.060
is if the city of Calgary is going to be more of a challenge,
00:24:01.100
a lot of these smaller centers are prepared to take that tax base
00:24:06.620
And you're not going to see the taxes from them.
00:24:08.940
Well, we're seeing that in Calgary, for example, with the industrial, for sure.
00:24:12.220
If you go north of the city into the Rocky View, holy cow,
00:24:14.760
are they putting up warehouses and light manufacturing and all sorts of things?
00:24:18.100
and it's no coincidence that it's just north of the city line uh city's not winning when they're
00:24:23.940
trying these battles no they're not and they're losing out on about another thousand acres of that
00:24:28.700
too so i mean again it gets back to the the solutions as you said i mean we got multiple
00:24:33.980
levels of government that's part of the problem too and they aren't necessarily getting along
00:24:37.580
i think the federal government i saw some signaling i mean they're trying the carrot
00:24:41.520
approach with some of the municipal governments saying they'd have transfers if if municipal
00:24:45.080
governments could come up with ways to expand their housing supply. But if you're directing
00:24:49.740
that money directly, it could, of course, just fall into that municipal pot and they still could
00:24:54.160
hinder outward growth of housing, I guess. Well, that's exactly what you're seeing
00:24:58.980
happening, Corey. And I think that's, again, kind of circling back to the housing affordability
00:25:03.660
task force. The focus has been on social or subsidized housing because now we've created
00:25:12.520
a problem we've created you know a pricing problem and an affordability problem you know
00:25:18.820
and that that seems to be where a lot of that's getting directed and you know good on them for
00:25:23.220
for taking on that issue but you know the biggest challenge past that is you know we're already
00:25:28.280
constrained with labor so how are you going to build it you've come up with this great plan but
00:25:32.280
how are you going to build it more importantly yeah i mean you subsidize socialized housing and
00:25:38.620
then when you pour money into that, when you have the labor crunch, well, then you're actually just
00:25:43.140
going to put the prices of things up even higher because you're pulling the labor and supplies into
00:25:47.940
another area. It turns into a self-feeding monster. Another issue we've got, and it's not just the
00:25:53.520
people at the level of needing subsidized or socialized housing, but people are in, if they've
00:25:57.960
recently bought into an existing home and they came in tightly on the financing, the interest
00:26:04.220
rates have been going up and suddenly they're finding themselves very, very crunched right now
00:26:07.820
making that mortgage payment and that's the the new the new challenge that we have and we faced
00:26:13.260
that last month where we had 10 homeowners who couldn't take their homes because they no longer
00:26:17.980
qualified with the uh with the increase in the rates and and of course now they're re-qualifying
00:26:23.260
under the uh the cmhc stress test rather and that uh that just had another two and a half two and
00:26:31.260
three quarter points on to what they have to qualify for so they no longer qualify for a home
00:26:35.580
So they were that close to achieving their dream and now that's gone for now.
00:26:43.400
I mean, we know now it is so hard to get into the housing market and getting going, saving that money, getting the good credit, tightening the belts.
00:26:51.120
And then, as you said, getting that close and suddenly, and I'm sorry, it might take you a couple more years, if ever, because the cost has just shot up yet again.
00:27:00.700
So, I mean, you know, eliminating that stress test would be the first best thing.
00:27:04.140
And I know that I have a number of people who would argue with me on that,
00:27:07.620
but I just don't think that's a qualification that really needs to be in place
00:27:13.100
if the federal government follows through on their promise that they're,
00:27:15.660
they're not going to continually jack up rates,
00:27:17.540
which they seem to have failed at to this point, you know,
00:27:21.300
then we wouldn't have these same issues. You know, it, it also works both ways.
00:27:25.500
When you continually increase rates, I mean, that just puts fear in people,
00:27:29.620
fear that they're never going to be able to get in.
00:27:31.180
They're never going to be able to achieve that dream.
00:27:33.020
And that's creating, you know, that mass rush as well.
00:27:36.500
Well, yeah, you might reevaluate your decision as well.
00:27:39.140
I mean, oh, wow, I'm qualified now, but we're here.
00:27:43.180
If we go, if we dive in right now, maybe we'll wait and they'll hold back.
00:27:47.320
But I mean, it doesn't get easier for waiting, unfortunately.
00:27:51.140
So have you, has your industry or India's industry associations at least been reaching out to the government saying, hey, hey, you know, talk to us.
00:28:00.380
Like, has there been an effort to try and at least get them to realize that they're missing out on an important perspective?
00:28:05.960
There are literally daily and weekly conversations with every level of government possible.
00:28:12.860
You know, the HBAs, the home building associations, rather, across the entire country, even at the federal level,
00:28:18.320
have spent a lot of time with their counterparts in government having these discussions on how to make things more affordable.
00:28:24.880
Now, whether or not they take the recommendations, I mean, that's that's totally up to the minister and their departments.
00:28:31.740
And if they didn't invite your input in the first place, it doesn't sound like they're eager to hear it, unfortunately.
00:28:40.340
But I guess where the challenge comes in, Corey, is that it should have been right up front with the strategy.
00:28:45.880
It shouldn't be, you know, here we've come with a strategy.
00:28:50.720
You know, and that's where I really get frustrated is we should have been involved right up front, and it's disappointing that we weren't.
00:28:57.180
So just to kind of finish up, I mean, one of the big hindrances, and I don't know if you have an answer for it, is our labor shortage, though.
00:29:03.320
I mean, if we streamline things, we get them faster, we got some new areas zoned for it, fantastic, ready to go.
00:29:09.660
What can we do, though, to get more boots on the ground to help build these?
00:29:13.400
I mean, that's a real bottleneck, no matter what the regulations are.
00:29:16.940
Well, that's really going to come down to your immigration policies and the kind of people that you're bringing in and the skill set that they have.
00:29:23.700
I mean, we know where we have the gaps, you know, when our industry is prepared to share that information.
00:29:28.440
And they have with their provincial and federal counterparts.
00:29:31.720
But, you know, it's getting the attention of the immigration ministers and ensuring that, you know, we are working towards bringing this skill set into Canada and across the country.
00:29:45.260
Yeah, which is a much bigger and complicated, you know, discussion. But I mean, targeting skilled
00:29:52.620
immigrants, whether from carpenters to even just just labor. But I mean, it's important. I mean,
00:29:57.980
that's one of the things where we can fulfill one of the things we're bringing the immigrants in,
0.99
00:30:00.620
and they're helping build the homes that they're going to need when they get here.
00:30:03.420
Exactly. And I mean, that's, that's an immediate solution. And a long term solution is you do have
00:30:07.500
to get young kids and what have you in the trades. What you're seeing or what you're experiencing
00:30:14.380
now is you are experiencing retirements. You've got trades that are longer in the tooth and they're
00:30:20.620
65, 70 years old and they're saying, that's enough. I'm calling it a day. It's time to enjoy
00:30:25.260
my golden years. So you do need kids in the trades. And to be honest, I couldn't think of
00:30:31.420
any generation that has a greater opportunity for a career than they do now in the trades.
00:30:39.340
Very good point. I mean, it would take a couple to a few years to get those kids through those
00:30:43.340
programs, but boy, it would pay off for them and us when we get that influx of trained people in
00:30:48.480
the market. Well, we'll just have to keep reaching out, keep pressuring government. I mean, there's
00:30:54.740
been a recent cabinet shuffle. Maybe they're receptive to some new ideas in there and listening
00:31:00.640
Because, I mean, it's as frustrated as we get with the Liberal government.
00:31:04.060
I'm sure they would love, though, to have this housing problem off their back.
00:31:07.940
So, I mean, they've got to be somewhat receptive to some good thoughts now and then.
00:31:16.400
Thanks for calling them out online and coming on the show to discuss that with us, though,
00:31:20.440
because, you know, a lot of people kind of scratch their heads.
00:31:24.620
Well, you know, there's a lot of reasons and some solutions if the government would start considering them.
00:31:29.880
So I appreciate that. Where can people see you online and where you're speaking and such, Shane?
00:31:35.980
Oh, pretty simple. Just at Shane Wenzel. Just go on any platform. You're going to find me there.
00:31:41.260
All right. Well, thanks again for coming on, Shane. It's always a good conversation when you
00:31:45.860
come on. And one of these days, we'll get it all solved.
00:31:49.400
I can only hope, Corey. Thanks again and take care.
00:31:53.780
You bet. So that was Shane Wenzel of Shane Holmes. And yeah, it's a great Twitter account
00:31:57.640
to follow, some good common sense stuff. He's not as belligerent as I am on Twitter. He likes to
00:32:02.520
stick to the points a little more, but you know, you can follow both, right? You can get me cursing
00:32:06.320
people out and you can get Shane making some good points. And one of those points, see, that's one
00:32:10.240
I hadn't even thought of. That's why I like having these guests on here. I can't think of everything,
00:32:13.460
but the trades, that's something that drove me mad. I finished high school in 88 in Banff and
00:32:18.140
yeah, I spent some time in a private school prior to that. It's understandable from the private
00:32:21.360
school, public school still. I went through school, came out. I didn't know what a trade was. I really
00:32:27.440
didn't. I didn't know what a journeyman was. I didn't know what any of these things were,
00:32:31.640
an apprenticeship. I think in some fantasy novels I'd read, you know, magician's apprentices and
00:32:36.280
things like that. Like we were not taught that. Why? Why are we not taught that in school? Why
00:32:40.720
are we not taught that that path is there? I mean, that's been a long time. I don't know.
00:32:45.380
Maybe some commenters can speak up and let me know. Are the schools allowing a little more of
00:32:50.720
that discussion? Because I mean, some of the discussion when I came out of school was along
00:32:53.600
the lines of, you're either going to get a university degree or you're going to be a janitor
00:32:57.400
and there's nothing in the middle. That was a lot of what the attitude was. And not everybody is
00:33:02.760
geared to the academic path. And there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with these trades. And as I
00:33:08.880
say, we're all paying the price now, as Shane pointed out, for the lack of the trades. I mean,
00:33:13.660
do you see any starving electricians or plumbers or carpenters right now? Millwrights? No, they're
00:33:19.760
busy. They're making good money. They got solid, secure work, and they're providing products for
00:33:25.340
us. We don't need more women's studies graduates, guys. We've got enough gender ideology study
1.00
00:33:30.440
graduates out there. I promise you, we don't need more philosophers, but we could sure use a heck of
00:33:36.740
a lot more plumbers. So yeah, maybe it's time to readjust. And there's no shame whatsoever in going
00:33:43.600
into a trade. That's what it felt like when I graduated. Like it was shameful to go into a
00:33:46.760
it's ridiculous it's absolutely ridiculous and uh what's this a commenter say my daughter just
00:33:52.440
graduated as a journeyman welder out of fairview after attending public school there we go uh the
00:33:56.280
comp and grand prairie good yeah welders hey that's good coin and there's a you know again
00:34:01.080
there's always demand for those things we got re-evaluate some of our thinking and a lot of
00:34:04.880
speaking of kids who fall through the cracks on graduation if they don't know that path is there
00:34:09.420
they aren't going to pursue it i i ended up in the survey industry as a helper for a surveyor and
00:34:15.800
climb the, you know, the, the, the pole that way. But I, I didn't have any, I guess, aspirations to
0.91
00:34:23.780
be an electrician or any of those trades. But even if I did, I wouldn't have known where to begin.
00:34:28.700
I really wouldn't have. And our schools should be teaching us that. That's some of the basics.
00:34:32.640
That's some of the things. So nobody should get out of school and not know what the potential
00:34:36.620
career paths are. So we're really failing ourselves. We're failing our students. And
00:34:43.480
it's not good for any of us. Yeah, paradox is saying they stopped vocational schools at some
00:34:50.500
point. I think some of that was, again, they made a stigma about it, right? Like they made it sound
00:34:56.100
as if, you know, if you go to a vocational school, it's a lesser thing. Yeah, well, look, the kind of
00:35:02.420
home your average mechanic is living in these days. You know, again, they're making really good
00:35:07.360
money. Those vocational schools weren't where you put the loser kids. There were places to put kids
00:35:12.820
who were looking at a different educational path.
00:35:15.560
It doesn't mean they were, and that's what I mean.
00:35:18.980
It's because they're not into reading philosophy
00:35:29.860
with what they're showing the aptitude towards.
00:35:32.980
And everybody gets into the things they need to.
00:35:37.100
heavy duty automotive and agricultural technicians.
00:35:39.440
Yeah, all these positions are out there right now.
00:35:42.820
And, you know, how many more people do we need graduating with degrees in interpretive dance, right?
00:35:49.300
Speaking of schools and how absurd and ridiculous and bad they're getting,
00:35:55.080
I'm sure a lot of us, you know, have seen that story.
00:36:06.900
And he was with the Toronto Regional School Board with them.
00:36:10.840
and he'd taught. He's 60 years old. He's been a career teacher, taught on both sides of the
00:36:19.260
border. He'd worked in upstate New York in inner city schools. He'd taught up in Canada. He'd spent
00:36:25.200
time. He went to a diversity course, a trainer, one of those things, a person whose specialty is
00:36:31.360
basically trying to train us all somehow in diversity. And I guess at this seminar,
00:36:48.360
she charges like $6,000 for a four hour Zoom seminar
1.00
00:36:52.960
I mean there's quite a racket on this stuff guys
00:36:59.200
and she was going on about how awful and racist Canada is
0.57
00:37:03.840
and then she said that Canada was more racist than the United States
00:37:08.600
I mean, it's a fool's game to talk about who's more or less anyways.
00:37:11.500
I mean, and again, the discussion comes to, so you're denying there's racism.
00:37:16.780
Nobody's saying we shouldn't be calling out racism and stopping racism.
00:37:20.960
But when we go to these extremes of everybody should hang their head in shame
00:37:24.320
because we're all somehow inherently racist, it gets tiresome.
00:37:28.080
This man spoke up and said, whoa, wait a second.
00:37:31.300
And he said, along the lines of, look, I have worked both sides.
00:37:40.580
And she called him out and she berated him.
0.79
00:37:44.120
She called him the works. And again, as a progressive,
00:37:46.620
he was a progressive man. There's nothing worse
00:38:02.660
Using him as a white supremacist example is what she was doing.
00:38:08.800
The Toronto District School Board wouldn't stand up for him.
00:38:14.140
And then he actually sued the Toronto District School Board because of that.
00:38:19.040
And they turned around, sued her, the diversity person.
00:38:26.000
They started character assassination on this man.
00:38:28.420
And trying to claim that he's, you know, again, some sort of white nationalist.
00:38:32.780
It got to him, and he committed suicide a few weeks ago.
00:38:38.680
The stress of this, this brought down his career for just daring to question some of the rhetoric at one of these seminars.
00:38:46.580
And this is what teachers are expected to embrace with some of this self-loathing, and they get bullied.
00:38:55.140
Some of the online discussion I've seen, and again, I play on Twitter.
00:38:58.780
Yeah, Twitter's a nasty place, but my, the vulgarity of one, and I can't remember her
00:39:04.620
If you want to look up my Twitter scroll, you'll see it from the other day.
00:39:07.260
She had a whole thread about this guy, I'm basically calling him a white nationalist,
00:39:14.300
Yeah, she wouldn't even say suicide, he unlived himself.
00:39:16.400
They're making up words to try and sugarcoat this man who was bullied to death, literally
00:39:21.560
bullied to death by this swarm of these woke diversity people. Yeah, I don't doubt. And that's
00:39:31.160
some of the things people call, well, you obviously had existing mental health problems. Probably.
00:39:35.360
A lot of people can take a lot of stress without reaching the point of suicide. But it doesn't
00:39:40.600
matter. You know, Amanda Todd was a young girl who was bullied online and shamed and she committed
0.97
00:39:47.040
suicide too. And are you going to shame her saying she was weak of mind? Because that's kind of what
00:39:52.740
they're saying about this man, you know, because she couldn't take it without leading to that
00:39:57.180
outcome. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. And these are the people who call themselves woke.
00:40:03.040
These are the people who call themselves the sensitive ones, the ones that are trying to make
00:40:07.240
us all love each other. What a load of crap. It's gone too far to the extreme. And it's so wrong.
00:40:15.320
These are the kind of folks who say things like Jason Aldean's song was about racism when it's not there.
00:40:23.100
And, you know, let's go back to some old, old words of wisdom, okay?
00:40:27.900
And that would be with old fairy tales, myths, things such as that.
00:40:36.260
But the boy who cried wolf, you know, you keep calling something out, calling something out, calling something out.
00:40:41.400
Eventually, people stop believing you when the real issue happens.
00:40:47.580
There really are some white nationalists out there.
00:40:49.440
I tell you, they're a minority of a minority, those losers.
1.00
00:41:01.940
These guys embraced their gross white nationalist ideology.
00:41:10.820
and shaving heads and their boots on like that anymore
00:41:13.920
because the public won't put up with these idiots and they still exist. They're just, again, a small,
00:41:20.160
small amount of clowns and they should be taken seriously. Some of these nutcases actually hurt
0.95
00:41:23.820
people sometimes. But when you're busy going after progressive high school principals for fake cases
00:41:31.940
of white nationalism, or if you're going after country songs for where apparently the root of
00:41:37.340
racism is, you're going to overlook the real racists who are out there. We're wandering around
00:41:42.700
who perhaps really do want to cause problem, who really do want to victimize people, who really do
00:41:47.500
want to divide people more based on their religion or their race or other such things.
00:41:53.160
We've overshot the target, guys, badly, badly. And it's got to come back. Either way, this man's
00:42:01.380
life was lost. And to see these guys ripping into this man, his body's barely cooled,
00:42:09.640
and trying to rip his character down to protect basically what they think is a good idea
00:42:14.940
with these diversity seminars where you call people out and rip them apart like that.
00:42:29.560
But at least he stood up in that room and said,
00:42:37.820
He was just saying, No, I don't agree with you.
00:42:39.180
You're not allowed to disagree. You're not allowed to disagree. You disagree, we will swarm you. We will shatter your character. We will cancel you. We will take away your career. And in the end, it took away this man's life.
00:42:51.880
these extremists that manage some of this diversity have to be put off to the side.
00:43:02.220
They're beyond the pale. They've gone too far. Let's see. We'll get into the, check into the
00:43:08.180
agricultural world pretty quickly here. But first, I'll hit quickly on, as we mentioned earlier,
00:43:13.040
there's been a cabinet shuffle. This is what I see as Justin Trudeau desperate, desperate. I mean,
00:43:19.400
over and over the polls are showing they're slowly but surely declining. I mean, at best right now,
00:43:24.120
if an election was held tomorrow, you'd have a conservative minority government. And I don't see
00:43:27.600
who they could form an agreement with to last a long time. The NDP certainly wouldn't partner with
00:43:32.500
them, but the liberals would not get the most seats in the house if another election was held.
00:43:35.820
And that trend keeps going down and down and down. There's only two things a government can do in
00:43:40.860
that case is change leaders or really shuffle the cabinet and hope you've refreshed things enough
00:43:46.700
that people will look at you with a new eye and change things.
00:43:56.140
But yeah, Mandicino's out, the Minister of Lies.
00:44:01.880
He probably, even Trudeau realized he'd had to get rid of that guy
00:44:05.060
months and months ago, but he had to wait for the opportunity
00:44:10.180
Al Heg, Omar, Al Hebra, I'm so terrible with names.
00:44:15.040
of course, the mess with the airlines, the strike on the dock, Carolyn Bennett. She's been there
00:44:21.520
for over 25 years. And yeah, she's out. Like we're not talking about, you know, moving from
00:44:27.900
spot to spot. They're out of cabinet altogether. So yeah, she's not going to run again. She was
00:44:33.420
behind, you know, she was the health or addictions and mental health minister. So she was behind the
00:44:38.300
big safe supply disaster that's unfolding in Vancouver right now as overdoses, you know,
00:44:43.480
hit record numbers and addicts just buy the safer supply pills and sell them to other addicts. It's
00:44:50.460
a failed policy. So Trudeau threw her out of cabinet, a few other lateral things and seven
00:44:55.880
rookie cabinet ministers. We'll see. But what I see and I think of the method and way that
00:45:01.660
Pierre Polyev works is he's rubbing his hands together because he's going to have a cabinet
00:45:05.560
full of rookies hitting. And part of the reason is because Justin wants to keep his balance of
00:45:10.260
women in there. So he really has narrowed his pool on who he can pick for cabinet or not. Not to say
00:45:15.300
there were no qualified women, but maybe not enough to make that 50-50 he wanted and so on.
1.00
00:45:19.880
And Polyev is going to rip into those rookie cabinet ministers like they've never felt before
00:45:25.320
when that next session hits. And they better be well established because if that new cabinet
00:45:30.440
can't fix things up, the liberals are going to continue to decline. All right. Well, let's check
00:45:35.260
in quickly with Jim Buzicom of Marketplace Commodities and see what's happening out there
00:45:40.060
in the agricultural commodity world. Hey, Jim, how are you doing? Great, Corey. How are you doing?
00:45:44.520
Good, good. Thanks. So what's making headlines for the ag people these days?
00:45:51.160
Okay. So on the ag side, it's probably somewhat, obviously, much less serious issues than what
00:45:59.060
you're talking about today. So harvest is starting in Western Canada. We're looking at
00:46:03.560
some of the first yields coming off showing the effects of the drought southern alberta
00:46:08.520
they're starting to harvest some peas 25 to 35 bushels per acre some of the barley harvest it's
00:46:15.800
very very poor we don't expect much different than that to start the first harvest would be the worst
00:46:22.260
but as they get into it further we'll start getting some better you know some more results
00:46:45.500
here in Canada, we're trading a lot of feed commodities,
00:46:49.980
even export commodities, somewhere around $400 Canadian per metric 10.
00:46:53.900
if you compare that to what some of the other competing countries some of the export prices from
00:47:00.940
elsewhere i'd say we're 100 bucks a 10 too high in western canada on much of our commodities so
00:47:07.940
we're competing with russian wheat russian peas going into china going into southeast asia
00:47:15.800
everyone talks about the issues that are on the go out there those are serious issues we get that
00:47:20.580
but you know what they're shipping ukraine is shipping those commodities they get to the end
00:47:26.240
user they really don't care who the origin is they just want the best price best quality just
00:47:32.300
like we all do so it's an interesting situation coming back here because you know we we hear
00:47:39.520
quite often that while shipping slowing down or it's going to be hard to move from those areas
00:47:43.940
well you know what they're actually offering lower week over week and we're having a harder time
00:47:48.820
exporting into similar markets that they are so the markets are uh are showing that product is
00:47:55.360
still moving well and then getting the the getting the product grown and harvested is one thing and
00:48:00.760
getting it to market is another so with the strike looking like it's going to come to an end in the
00:48:05.520
docks do you think that they'll have a limited impact then on exports at this point then so on
00:48:11.900
on egg commodities it has affected some people significantly probably for sure like some of the
00:48:18.480
hay exporters that I know have been significantly affected by it. A lot of the grain and oil seed
00:48:23.900
commodities, it's a slow time of the year to be exporting. It's the end of a crop year. Crop year
00:48:28.360
is August through July. So if things open up, things will probably return to some level of
00:48:36.300
normal. Of course, a huge negative because it's not just that they open up. It's the fact that
00:48:42.440
they can shut down exports from a country like Canada for such a significant period of time.
00:48:48.480
that keeps buyers wary about buying too much too far out from even a first world country like
00:48:55.560
Canada. Can you believe it? Yeah, well, it's similar to the issues we have with our energy
00:49:00.440
market as well. I mean, when we can't seem to get multiple pipelines to get to Tidewater to export
00:49:05.620
our products, it reduces capital investment in the energy market. I don't see why it wouldn't
00:49:10.800
be the same with agriculture then. If you can't get it out, there's not much point in growing it.
00:49:15.800
It's absolutely that it's all of that right back to here, just investment back
00:49:19.980
into this industry when it's hard to, to move it out.
00:49:23.840
And it seems like you're always fighting another red tape battle to make it happen.
00:49:29.180
Well, let's hope that the ports remain open and maybe that, that shakeup and
00:49:33.440
the reality of how vulnerable we are might, uh, uh, inspire some of our
00:49:37.940
regulators to, to try and secure our export ability a little more in the future.
00:49:43.220
All right. Thanks, Jim. I'll talk to you down the road.
00:49:47.240
So that was Jim Buzicom of Marketplace Commodities.
00:49:50.160
And yeah, it's just an ever-floating, like commodities in general, oil, gas.
00:49:54.380
I mean, if you're trying to invest in a long game,
00:49:55.940
but you get so many variables that get in the way,
00:50:04.700
I'm still of the old school where you call it the Ukraine.
00:50:07.340
And, you know, weather patterns around the world.
00:50:12.120
I can't imagine the amount of reading that Jim and his co-workers over there have to do to keep
00:50:17.000
up with the commodities in general. So check them out, guys, if you're an ag producer or looking
00:50:22.220
into those ag markets, marketplace commodities, and you can get a picture of what's happening
00:50:27.320
out there in those markets. All right. Speaking, I'm going to close out with, I kind of touched
00:50:33.340
on that, the Trans Mountain Pipeline. There's some news came out that we're supposed to basically,
00:50:39.940
don't worry about this extra $31 million that was spent on it and the records. Again, government
00:50:45.220
ineptness, the government's screwing up. Kinder Morgan, and I loathe that, whenever some clown
00:50:50.840
says to you, oh, but the government built you a pipeline, bought you a pipeline, guess my butt.
00:50:55.060
Nobody wanted you to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline. You guys drove Kinder Morgan away
00:51:00.660
from it. They were going to build it for private dollars, not a penny out of a taxpayer's dollar
00:51:05.860
pocket and it would lead to the employment of thousands of people downstream and the government
00:51:11.240
screwed with them so badly with the regulation and messing around they said you know what
00:51:15.480
we're out we're out we're done and it was a disaster for the government so they panicked
00:51:19.780
and they went and they bought the pipeline but if you want to know the height of stupidity it's a
00:51:23.940
government-run project so here we are years and years later still nothing going through that pipe
00:51:29.340
they've been working on it and puttering around with it and pissing around with it and shutting
00:51:33.040
it down and opening it up. The costs now, the current estimate is $30.9 billion from seven and
00:51:42.520
some billion dollars only a few years ago when the private market was going to build it. 30.9 and you
00:51:47.260
know it's going to keep going up under these idiots and their management of it. If it ever
00:51:52.280
bloody well gets to the coast, I'm sure they're doing it on purpose. It helps to the case of the
0.51
00:51:57.680
people saying, see, energy is not viable. It's not worth it. It's too expensive. You know, I'm going
00:52:02.140
to say energy, oil and gas. Only because of the bloody government. Because the government makes
00:52:07.680
it so inefficient to get it to the coast. They're dragging their feet on purpose, which is almost
00:52:12.640
criminal. And let's just hope that darn thing gets finished at one point or another. About 30.9
00:52:20.020
billion. And they said, we're not going to use any more public money in that thing. They have to,
00:52:23.120
they have to get the bloody thing done. So they're pouring it in. So now they're trying to hide it,
00:52:26.840
you know, 10 million here, 31 million there. It's terrible. All right. Well, that's the show this
00:52:32.040
week, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. We covered a lot of ground, talked about a lot of
00:52:37.160
stuff. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already, westernstandard.news slash membership.
00:52:43.000
That's how we can stay independent. That's how we keep things rolling, guys. And thank you to you
00:52:47.580
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00:52:50.980
never know when we might not be able to get found on Google and Facebook and all those things.
00:52:54.800
again, thanks to our rather inept federal government. And yeah, I will see you all here
00:53:00.400
again at this time next week. So thanks again. The current Lethbridge feed grain prices are as
00:53:08.680
follows. Cash barley is down $9 at $4.26. Feed wheat is down $14 at $4.22. And corn is down $10
00:53:17.180
at $406 per ton. In the milling wheat markets, September Minneapolis futures lost 34.5 cents at
00:53:24.520
at $8.97, with local hardwood spring bid for August movement at $10.40 per bushel.
00:53:30.960
In the oilseeds, nearby canola futures are up $8.30 at $832.30 per ton, with delivered
00:53:41.920
In the pulse markets, nearby red lundle prices are trading at $0.34 per pound, and yellow
00:53:50.580
In the cattle markets, August Live Cattle added $0.60 at $178.90 per hundredweight.
00:53:57.140
I'm David Lee at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.
00:54:03.300
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These guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.
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