Western Standard - January 05, 2023


CMS: Race-based criminal sentencing is costing lives


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per Minute

206.0431

Word Count

12,654

Sentence Count

730

Misogynist Sentences

19

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

This week we have a guest on the show, Farouk El-Sager, owner of Paul's Pizza in Airdrie, Alberta. We discuss the case of OPP Constable Greg Przala, who was murdered by a man who should have been released on bail.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's January 4th, 2023. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. As the name would imply,
00:00:37.040 I am Corey Morgan. This is the Western Standards live weekly show with me on here where I get on
00:00:42.680 on some issues, rantings, guest interviews in the works. Most of you regulars know that. As you see,
00:00:48.280 Nico is back. Justin did a fantastic job there over the holidays, but Nico is here and there's
00:00:53.780 a whole new opening sequence there for the show to get things up and rolling. Good to see you
00:00:58.640 guys checking in in the comments there wild rose paradoxy kjf all he has used the live comment
00:01:04.280 thing that's what i really appreciate on here reminds me that there really are people on the
00:01:08.440 other side of the camera there we can interact and it makes the it makes it worthwhile doing
00:01:12.760 these things live because you know it comes with a lot of challenges running these as we go but it
00:01:16.440 keeps us right up to date on issues and uh that just makes for a good interaction so good to see
00:01:22.200 you there jake and the others i got a guest i'm looking forward to today i always do of course i
00:01:28.240 wouldn't book them if I didn't look forward to them. But this fella, his name, Farouk El-Sager,
00:01:32.960 I might be slaughtering his name. I'm bad for that. Some people might be familiar with him,
00:01:36.580 though. He owns Paul's Pizza. They have a few branches, one in North Calgary, one in South
00:01:40.040 Calgary, and one in Airdrie, where his main one is. But what's interesting with him is he is,
00:01:45.560 well, very outspoken, very anti-woke, and he certainly does a lot of battle with the woke
00:01:52.320 on his website and on his Facebook page, yet still maintains his business. Of course,
00:01:56.160 they're always trying to cancel they're always trying to shut them down that the usual thing
00:02:00.000 that happens with the woke they don't tolerate different reviews they want to put you out of
00:02:03.580 business and he's just a very fun dynamic individual so it should be a good conversation
00:02:08.800 when we get Farouk on there as well of course lots of other issues to chat and talk about today guys
00:02:16.360 Dave Naylor our news editor usually checks in but again the holiday season he I believe is still out
00:02:22.800 in BC. So, uh, I'm not sure if I'm on right now, but, uh, I've got a blank screen saying
00:02:28.780 I'm not on the internet. So I'm going to keep talking, but, uh, maybe let me know in the
00:02:33.700 comments guys. Well, if I could see them, um, we will get going on things really soon
00:02:38.580 here with my monologue and, uh, yeah, it just, uh, makes it challenging for me here.
00:02:45.560 Just to check in, we might have a couple of tech problems. It's the new year. I've just
00:02:49.260 refreshed. We're back. Okay. I seem to be on. I see Farouk in the lobby there. It looks like we've
00:02:54.240 lost a few viewers. Maybe we popped off a bit. Darn it. Okay. What do we got? Scott there. Cheryl,
00:02:58.980 did I lose my razor? Nah, I just didn't feel like shaving this week. E Sharp, Tim Olson. Good to see
00:03:04.960 you guys all coming back. Okay. Let me get back to my rant and open up with things anyways with
00:03:09.660 today's monologue. We've got a guest on deck who's going to be on in about 20 minutes. Good to see
00:03:15.060 there, Arthur and Alison. All right, I'm getting a little more serious with things, though. This one
00:03:19.380 is a kind of a downer, but it's important. So, I mean, Canadians were horrified with the murder
00:03:24.280 of 28-year-old OPP Constable Greg Przala last December. I mean, they were horrified then,
00:03:30.900 and they were outraged to discover that one of the murderers had a long history of violent
00:03:34.580 crimes, including charges for assault against a peace officer, yet he'd been released on bail.
00:03:40.260 Randall McKenzie, he'd been in and out of prison for violent crimes. He was banned from possessing
00:03:44.600 firearms. And of course, despite all that, he was given bail after being arrested for violent crimes
00:03:49.840 and was in possession of a firearm. Due to Canada's lax criminal justice system, an innocent young
00:03:55.400 police officer was murdered by a man who never should have been free to commit the crime. But
00:03:59.900 why was Randall McKenzie repeatedly released despite the clear danger he presented to the
00:04:04.800 public at large? Well, it all comes down to something called the Gladue Principles. Those
00:04:09.500 principles were created through a Supreme Court case in 1999. Jamie Tannis Gladue stabbed her
00:04:15.080 common-law husband to death, and it was ruled that her Indigenous background should be taken
00:04:19.240 into consideration upon sentencing. The precedent and principles set were that lighter sentences
00:04:24.660 should be given to Indigenous offenders by the courts whenever possible. When the Canadian 1.00
00:04:29.380 government just recently, and in 2020, spent $49.3 million to support the further implementation of
00:04:34.660 those principles in the system, spreading it through prosecutors and judges. During one of
00:04:39.360 McKenzie's parole hearings, it was stated that he had suffered the negative impacts of colonialism,
00:04:43.900 and he believed his grandfather might even have attended a residential school. Yes, might have
00:04:48.400 attended. These things may or may not be true, but they don't have much bearing on whether or not
00:04:53.320 McKenzie would be safe to release, but that doesn't matter when it comes to the Gladue principles.
00:04:58.280 In a 2012 court case, another case went to the Supreme Court with a man named Manassee Ipealy.
00:05:04.180 Ipealy? I could be mispronouncing it. He was a repeat violent sex offender, though,
00:05:08.860 And the court reaffirmed, it went all the way to Supreme Court, reaffirmed the Gladue principles.
00:05:13.280 Well, he'd been released, re-arrested, and released and re-arrested several times since then, a violent sexual offender.
00:05:19.720 Now, last May, in Calgary, a visually impaired senior citizen named Leonard Smith was randomly attacked while waiting for a train to go to work.
00:05:25.840 His throat was cut ear to ear, and he was lucky to survive.
00:05:28.660 The man who tried to kill Smith was a violent repeat offender named Bobby Crane.
00:05:32.760 Crane's going to be free in about 14 months.
00:05:35.460 In the judge world, we must take into account the history of colonialism.
00:05:40.060 Sound familiar?
00:05:41.320 Last September, Miles Sanderson, I hate to even say that man's name,
00:05:45.420 he murdered 11 people on the James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
00:05:49.000 He had 59 criminal convictions behind him, many of them violent.
00:05:53.540 And still, he got nothing but short sentences.
00:05:56.560 He was released, and it led to the deaths of 11 people.
00:05:59.660 Studying the impacts of Indigenous policies and history is important
00:06:02.440 when we're trying to find ways to prevent crime.
00:06:04.160 Absolutely.
00:06:04.800 Indigenous people are definitely very overrepresented in the prison system.
00:06:09.080 The reason for that, though, is that Indigenous people are overrepresented when it comes to committing crimes.
00:06:14.400 The system's failing them, and we need to understand why.
00:06:17.220 But with all that said, it doesn't mean that Indigenous people convicted of violent crimes will be any less likely to re-offend upon release.
00:06:24.900 And when we're going to consider bail and sentencing or parole of violent offenders, the safety of the public has to come first,
00:06:30.980 no matter what the history might have been for the offender.
00:06:34.360 Most sex offenders of any race experienced abuse themselves as children.
00:06:37.860 And this is tragic, but it doesn't mean the offender is any less dangerous.
00:06:41.120 The supposed intent of the Gladue Principles was to reduce the number of Indigenous people incarcerated.
00:06:46.240 Well, it's been 20 years, more than 20 years, since the Gladue ruling,
00:06:49.640 and Indigenous people are as overrepresented in the system as ever, if not actually more.
00:06:53.840 So how long is it going to take to admit the principles have been a failure?
00:06:56.680 How many more people have to die?
00:06:59.120 Race-based policies in Canada created a terrible situation,
00:07:02.480 and they created the situation that Indigenous people are living in.
00:07:05.640 More race-based policies, though, aren't going to solve the problem. 0.51
00:07:08.320 If we want to get to the root of why Indigenous people are disproportionately committing 0.97
00:07:11.300 and being victims of crime, we should be looking at repealing the Indian Act
00:07:14.700 and working away from our system of apartheid called reserves.
00:07:17.680 There's clearly a problem in Canada as Indigenous people are the ones that are suffering from it.
00:07:22.280 In the meantime, though, we need to put public safety first.
00:07:25.060 We need to ensure dangerous offenders remain incarcerated no matter what their race and background are.
00:07:30.180 The GLADU principles have to go.
00:07:32.480 All right, so that's been on a serious note, but I mean, it's still, it was infuriating that poor young officer. And then you hear, and we hear these stories over and over and over again. These, these, these are offenders that you don't need to be a very experienced judge or criminologist to look at their history and realize these are people who cannot be reformed or at least not in any short period of time. They present a terrible risk to the public at large, yet they get released. And of course they re-offend and the public pays the price.
00:07:59.120 Some people say we can't afford long sentences.
00:08:00.980 Well, can we afford to let them out?
00:08:02.900 It's not like they're out for long.
00:08:04.740 The chronic ones, the violent ones, they're in and out and in and out.
00:08:07.240 Anyways, it's cheaper just to keep them in than to have to keep retrying them.
00:08:11.400 So, yeah, we've got to really reevaluate this.
00:08:13.800 I don't know.
00:08:14.480 You know, we want to hope for the best.
00:08:18.840 But, yeah, we've got more sentencing coming.
00:08:20.380 Terry Newman pointing out, Ian Gladue, Drumheller Institution inmate,
00:08:23.420 sent us 75 days for stabbing an inmate in 2021.
00:08:25.980 one. I wonder what the sentence would have been had the name not been Gladue. Yeah, it's hard to
00:08:30.440 tell. But you see, as I said, judges and prosecutors are now being instructed to take
00:08:35.720 this into account. There was millions spent to keep educating them on that. So this has to be
00:08:41.420 brought up every time, whether they're paroling, whether they're bailing, and so on.
00:08:44.780 All they should be talking about when we're talking about parole or bail or sentencing
00:08:50.260 is the public safety. That should come first. Nothing else. Then we'll work on the other
00:08:55.900 things. Yes, we want to work on reforming people. Yes, we want to try and prevent the crimes from
00:09:00.680 happening in the first place. But once the crimes have been done, then we have to start looking at
00:09:04.680 public protection. But that seems to be too complicated in Canada's system. So speaking
00:09:08.660 to people who have difficulty with coming to grips with things or thinking about things,
00:09:15.260 let's talk about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Yeah, not the sharpest knife in the drawer,
00:09:18.120 but he is the man leading our country right now.
00:09:20.420 We're looking, you know, we're going to talk into what's going to be happening in 2023.
00:09:24.340 Justin has decided now it's time to bring in, he's been talking about it for a long time,
00:09:28.580 the Just Transition Bill.
00:09:30.960 This bill, we'll see what's in the details when it comes into it.
00:09:34.160 Bottom line is, he's saying, well, this is how, because oil industry is going to die,
00:09:38.280 it's going to be finished.
00:09:39.000 It's yesterday's energy.
00:09:40.760 Germany has realized that that's not the case.
00:09:42.800 But either way, he wants to phase out Alberta's energy sector.
00:09:46.240 He wants to shut it down.
00:09:47.500 He has idiotically basically illegalized the production of combustion engines and cars in 2035.
00:09:56.040 It's not going to work. It's not going to happen, but it's going to cost us a fortune as he pursues this.
00:10:00.600 And this just transition saying, oh, we'll retrain all the energy sector workers in green energy fields.
00:10:06.880 How? Where? In all the electric car plants in Ontario that you're subsidizing? I don't think so.
00:10:12.000 You know, this transition is going to be a transition from being one of the most prosperous nations on Earth to one of the poorest.
00:10:17.140 if we keep down the lines of this Venezuelan idiocy 1.00
00:10:19.380 that our prime minister is pushing us towards.
00:10:22.220 But that's what we're looking forward to in 2023.
00:10:24.580 Now, people might have issues with Danielle Smith. 1.00
00:10:26.840 Lots of people do.
00:10:27.600 That's fine.
00:10:28.060 But she's our premier right now. 0.99
00:10:29.440 And the alternative is Rachel Notley.
00:10:31.800 Now, who do you think is going to be a better place
00:10:33.800 to stand up to Trudeau with a just transition?
00:10:37.080 Notley?
00:10:38.180 Who has to answer to Jagmeet Singh?
00:10:40.800 Or Danielle Smith? 0.98
00:10:42.200 Hey, quit looking for a perfect leader, guys.
00:10:44.420 Just look for the better of the two.
00:10:45.680 And I don't think it's a difficult decision to make.
00:10:49.040 I mean, I was listening the other day.
00:10:51.040 I torture myself with conventional talk radio.
00:10:53.140 We know that.
00:10:53.620 I do that now and then.
00:10:54.580 And there was an expert on the climate and the rest.
00:10:57.360 She was speaking, saying, oh, this transition to electric vehicles, it'll be easy.
00:11:01.380 Yeah, we might have to increase the power grid by, oh, I don't know, two to three times.
00:11:06.720 Yeah, two to 300% increase in the power grid infrastructure.
00:11:10.800 And she just threw that out off handily and then moved on. 1.00
00:11:12.800 Wait a minute.
00:11:13.840 Wait a minute.
00:11:14.340 You think we can triple our capacity in 12 years?
00:11:18.600 The infrastructure that right now is barely serving the population as it is,
00:11:22.720 where there's brownouts in Ontario, where we had energy shortages in Alberta?
00:11:26.440 Not a chance.
00:11:27.840 Where's the new hydroelectric dams?
00:11:29.460 Where's the new nuclear plants that are going to generate that power? 0.51
00:11:32.820 How many houses will have to be upgraded?
00:11:35.960 The transmission lines, just on every level,
00:11:38.900 to bring this about by 2035 when Prime Minister Ding Dong
00:11:41.820 is going to eliminate the supposedly combustion engines, it's not going to happen. But you know
00:11:46.540 what will happen? We'll be screwed. And we'll be bringing in those combustion engines from other 0.98
00:11:52.700 countries. You know, Trudeau will be gone by then, I would hope. I'm hoping Alberta will be gone by
00:11:56.340 then, but that's a separate issue we'll talk about in a different show. But just look at Germany.
00:12:01.900 They're such a prime example of it. They say, we're going to go green. We're going to go green.
00:12:05.800 They shut down their coal energy generation. They shut down their nuclear generation.
00:12:10.920 And all the time, they were getting more and more dependent on Russian gas while they're at it as a backstop
00:12:15.020 because they were putting hundreds of billions of their tax dollars into wind and solar.
00:12:20.180 And guess what? It couldn't generate nearly enough power.
00:12:23.340 And once Russia put the screws to them, they were screwed.
00:12:26.560 What are they doing now? Well, they've started burning coal again.
00:12:29.200 They've reactivated their nuclear plants and they've bought contracts to get liquefied natural gas from Dubai.
00:12:37.440 Yeah, that's what's happened.
00:12:39.680 See, you can make all of your goals and your plans and set your little deadlines.
00:12:45.240 But when push comes to shove, you end up having to go back to conventional energy.
00:12:49.480 And that's what's going to happen in Canada.
00:12:51.080 Except we'll be getting those cars from Mexico or the United States or Asian countries.
00:12:55.640 We'll have to import them because our prime minister basically illegalized the production of those vehicles here.
00:13:01.420 And we will pay a fortune for them.
00:13:03.960 And, of course, again, that will further damage the economy.
00:13:06.800 doesn't matter to a prime minister who was born with a silver spoon and his mouth spent his
00:13:11.340 vacation in Jamaica, you know, kicking back. It's his private jets to fly him around. He doesn't
00:13:16.120 worry about the cost of living because in his world, it's just, well, just send the maid out 0.99
00:13:19.980 to find cheaper food, you know? I mean, how hard is it, people? We got a scary looking 2023 ahead
00:13:25.680 of us. I mean, I'm going to hit one more story before we get onto Farouk. And this kind of
00:13:32.060 shows that this was out in Black Locks Reporter, and it might be up on the Western Standard there
00:13:35.860 soon, is gangs. Yeah, we got gang involvement in the public sector. Our government employees,
00:13:41.600 it's not really that shocking, I guess it's only a natural place to go, have organized crime
00:13:47.620 getting involved with them. There's a memo that went out and estimated that 26 criminal gangs
00:13:52.780 were operating within Canadian public sector agencies or departments. You know, I don't know
00:13:58.940 if that's necessarily all that bad. I got a feeling Hell's Angels could manage the passport
00:14:03.620 office better than the government could anyway. So maybe, maybe it's not so bad having these gangs
00:14:08.860 getting involved in there anyways, the government's not doing a bloody good job anyhow. But getting on
00:14:13.420 the serious side of it, there's only one reason why criminal gangs get involved in something is
00:14:18.360 because there's money in it somewhere. So what sort of corruption is going on that would draw
00:14:23.040 the attention of criminal gangs to the public center to those pointy headed bureaucrats and 0.74
00:14:28.560 and drones that are costing us a fortune in these offices, these federal offices.
00:14:34.040 The Criminal Intelligence Service, yeah, in a report last April,
00:14:36.840 they counted 31 criminal groups, mostly at the municipal level.
00:14:40.360 Okay, that's interesting, actually.
00:14:41.400 That does change things a little bit.
00:14:42.620 I can understand a little bit.
00:14:43.820 Of which 26% are mafia groups, 10% are motorcycle gangs, and 6% are street gangs.
00:14:49.160 I'm not sure what that other giant percent is, but that comes down to a lot of,
00:14:53.920 I can see where some of the money is going in that case.
00:14:56.900 I mean, organized crime has always been tied tightly with organized labor.
00:15:02.460 I mean, look at the history of the Teamsters, and you can get a good idea with that.
00:15:06.120 And when you can get into areas that got into a lot of municipal politics, when you looked
00:15:11.200 at, say, The Sopranos, yeah, it's a fictional show, but when they were all tied up with
00:15:15.320 trucks and garbage trucks, well, that's the truth of a lot of it over there, because that's
00:15:18.880 all contracted to municipal governments, and all you have to do is compromise a few officials
00:15:22.960 to get some very large contracts, to get some things rolling.
00:15:26.340 Montreal has had a lot of problems with organized crime, getting involved in their municipal politics, traditionally as well, actually, if you want to look into that.
00:15:35.420 Saxon Riverstone saying the border agency is rife with criminals as well.
00:15:40.400 Yeah, and the RCMP are too.
00:15:43.240 He says, well, maybe, I don't know.
00:15:45.260 I mean, I guess it would be a good place to infiltrate if you want to get some stuff done and get away with crimes.
00:15:51.540 Of course, corrupting the police forces is a good way to go.
00:15:55.880 as well as your local governments.
00:15:57.320 All right, well, let's get on to having a conversation
00:15:59.180 with Farouk here.
00:16:01.260 I'm looking forward to this.
00:16:02.700 I see he's got his titles, Farouk Assault.
00:16:04.400 And yes, that's how he's referred to it.
00:16:05.460 There was a great rebel interview he was on as well with.
00:16:08.280 You can look that up a little farther back.
00:16:10.100 So we're going to run a quick ad
00:16:11.480 from one of our great sponsors.
00:16:13.240 And then we're going to chat with Farouk
00:16:14.540 and talk about a few things
00:16:15.800 with running a business in Cancel Culture.
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00:16:23.980 These guys are on the front lines
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00:16:32.400 importantly educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people
00:16:36.960 to become a member it's absolutely worth every penny
00:16:39.940 all right well let's welcome farouk assault from paul's pizza up in airdrie hey glad you
00:16:48.640 come in by the way am i screwing the pronunciation of your first name or not uh no you're saying it
00:16:52.780 perfectly cory oh good good i i specialize in messing up people's names so i just like to
00:16:57.700 check because usually even once i'm corrected i still screw it up but uh that's good that that's
00:17:01.180 working out so uh i did say at the top of the show though i i kind of introduced you and said
00:17:06.120 you were coming up that you're a business owner you own paul's pizza they've got three branches
00:17:10.380 in alberta two in calgary one in airdrie and uh you've basically been standing up to the cancel
00:17:16.920 mob you're outspoken uh particularly on your facebook page and have a lot of interactions
00:17:21.960 and discussions and uh you won't back down to the cancellers uh is that kind of in a nutshell where
00:17:26.960 things are with you uh yeah that's uh that's pretty spot on cory um i'd say i've been dealing
00:17:32.680 with the cancel culture for several years now um started back when covet first came about
00:17:39.980 uh basically i didn't agree with any of the uh policies the government was enforcing um
00:17:45.640 i spoke out against it and from there it just you know skyrocketed i get messages every
00:17:51.920 day. I get threats that people wanted to beat me up. I get a one-star review saying I don't wear a
00:17:57.020 mask, uh, cancel this business and yada, yada. Yeah. And, and your, your, you know, situation,
00:18:04.140 your story resonated with me as a lot of our regulars know, I, I owned a water's edge pub
00:18:08.520 and Prittis. Uh, we made a lot of pizza. I worked in Chicago deep dish for a long time when I was
00:18:12.320 younger. I'm a fussy pizza guy. I love my pizzas. We used to sell a lot. And, uh, well, to start
00:18:17.820 with as I went out, cause I'm going to say, well, I'm going to try these guys. I hadn't, I admittedly
00:18:21.200 had Paul's Pizza yet and I had it and I'm happy to report because I just would have had to say
00:18:24.300 nothing if it was crappy. It's very good pizza, guys. That's part of what's keeping you going.
00:18:28.220 I mean, it doesn't matter how outspoken you are. If your product sucks, you're not going to last
00:18:31.240 in business long anyways. But when I ran my pub, I wouldn't use our public page, I guess, for my
00:18:37.520 political interactions, though we would still get backlash when I would use Twitter, things like
00:18:43.180 that. They realized I would own it. Usually when I'd tick off unions and suddenly, yeah, Google,
00:18:46.340 I'd get like 51 stars in an afternoon, uh, and, uh, accused of all sorts of things and boycotts
00:18:52.420 and such like that. But you're going right out on, on your, uh, uh, Facebook page, but it seems to
00:18:56.780 be kind of actually drawing more people towards it. You've got kind of a very loyal following on
00:19:00.820 that. Uh, yeah, man. Uh, the more I post the, the bigger, the brand grows. I've realized, um,
00:19:08.800 I like the haters because they're talking about me. Um, like I say, any publicity is good publicity.
00:19:14.520 as long as they're talking about you, you're doing something right.
00:19:17.940 I always refer, I don't want to refer to myself as him,
00:19:21.020 but I look at Tom Brady, for example.
00:19:23.220 He's the greatest quarterback of all time,
00:19:25.700 but he has the most haters because he's amazing, right?
00:19:29.920 So it just comes with the territory is what I've learned.
00:19:33.300 Yeah, I'm wondering, are you familiar with White Moose Cafe in Dublin?
00:19:37.700 I would have no, no idea.
00:19:39.640 I'm just throwing that out in the blue.
00:19:40.720 The guy who owns it is a guy named Paul Stinson.
00:19:42.640 I'd recommend you and anybody else look it up.
00:19:44.000 very similar in a sense. He owns a cafe in Dublin and he has just horrified the woke. I mean,
00:19:49.200 he put up great policies. He even put one up saying he was going to charge corkage for
00:19:52.820 breastfeeding mothers. He says, you know, if they're bringing their own drinks, I should get 0.98
00:19:56.960 a few bucks. And of course he had the breastfeeding mothers protesting outside his place. 0.98
00:20:01.040 It's brilliant and very similar. And what I was saying before to you and others, it's important
00:20:07.020 to see examples like yourself, where rather than curling up and caving to the mob, you just stood
00:20:12.840 up and pushed back. Like we, that's the way to beat them. We can't, there's so many businesses,
00:20:17.720 as soon as you get that sort of controversy, they run away in fear and you're showing, no,
00:20:21.680 you don't have to be fearful. Your business can still be successful. Don't take any crap from
00:20:25.680 them. Uh, spot on. Um, in my opinion, they're bullies. Uh, the woke mob, they're a bunch of
00:20:32.480 bullies that hide behind a keyboard. Um, if you're quiet, if you're silent, they're going to keep at
00:20:36.980 it. Uh, so like you said, the only thing to fight back is to punch them back in the mouth.
00:20:41.660 and what i'm trying to do not my facebook isn't just for uh for business to grow the brand but
00:20:47.720 i'm trying to teach the world a lesson right i'm trying to uh to teach these other businesses like
00:20:53.260 you just said not to stay silent to say something back if they give you you know one-star review
00:20:57.780 say something shitty about your business who cares right move on get over get over it um but
00:21:03.420 the the more of us that stand together um the the the better we can fight these guys back
00:21:09.420 um yeah that's basically it yeah well i mean and they can you know the mob is insatiable i i hate
00:21:18.240 it when i see when they get on somebody's case i understand the fear look especially in the
00:21:22.560 hospitality industry it's narrow margin it's tight you know you can't take much abuse or you could
00:21:26.960 end up going you know into the the red very fast but when i see a business cave they the mob will
00:21:33.340 never back down just because you apologize they won't back down if you stop speaking they are like
00:21:37.500 sharks with blood in the water they'll keep coming until you're crushed so you might as well fight
00:21:42.140 back uh i 100 agree um luckily for us uh we're established um we're constantly growing um the
00:21:51.500 two calgary locations you spoke of one we opened about three years ago one we opened about two
00:21:55.820 years ago we're actually working on a third calgary location hopefully open in the next year
00:22:00.140 and uh these guys they can they can say as much as they want they're never going to cancel polls
00:22:04.940 we're on cancel cancelable uh we have such great support from our customers from people all over
00:22:10.060 the world um i get messages from guys in america mexico um philippines you name it these guys got
00:22:17.660 my got my back 100 of the time and and the thing i found is for every customer i lose i gain 10 more
00:22:25.340 10 better ones and uh another thing i want to point out is um you don't want these customers
00:22:31.900 in your business, to the other businesses. You don't want these left-wing nutheads coming into 1.00
00:22:37.440 your business, putting your customers in bad moods, demanding free things, because at the end of the
00:22:42.160 day, all you're getting is a headache, and you're not making a profit. We're in business to make a
00:22:45.700 profit. Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. That kind of brings into one of the commenters
00:22:50.860 pointing out from Why Not Be. It said, Farouk, is he being bullied by the ESG aggressors? I don't
00:22:56.020 know if it's as organized as that, but it's that mindset. It's that mindset of some people that
00:22:59.580 businesses aren't there to make a profit. They're there to do a social service. They're there
00:23:03.340 to promote social justice or some such garbage as that. No, your business is there to provide
00:23:09.580 good service, good food, and for you and your family to make money out of it. Nothing less.
00:23:15.520 Exactly. Spot on. We're a business. We're there to make a profit. If you don't like it,
00:23:19.020 go somewhere else. There's the door. There's a pizza hut across the street. There's 30 other
00:23:23.360 pizza restaurants just in Airdrie alone. Go somewhere else. We don't care. We don't want
00:23:27.880 we don't need your money. That's my mindset. That's the mindset every business should have,
00:23:31.640 in my opinion. Yeah. And there's other aspects as to why your business is standing. I mean,
00:23:36.060 it comes to kind of what I said before too. Hey, if your product sucked, it wouldn't matter what
00:23:39.940 you do online or whatever else, eventually you're going to go down because people just don't want
00:23:43.200 to eat bad food. But as well as Don Sharp pointed out, and I spent a lot of time going through your
00:23:47.940 Facebook page because it's just very entertaining. And it's also great to watch though. And he said,
00:23:52.480 I really liked the way for celebrates his staff and that's leadership. And that's true. I mean,
00:23:56.420 I see you very interactive with your staff. It's clear you value them. You're giving awards. You're
00:24:01.700 bringing them in on the communications and on the business and trying to have some fun with them.
00:24:05.820 And that's really important as well. Yeah, I agree. Once again, I believe that in any business,
00:24:12.940 the staff is the foundation. Without great staff, your business is going to fail. I believe I'm very
00:24:19.740 spiritual. So I believe in positive energy. And the more positive they are, the more uplifted
00:24:23.620 there, the more family oriented you make the environment, the more effort they're going to
00:24:28.340 put into the business. And the more they're going to work together, the happier they're going to be,
00:24:32.300 the happier they work. Well, yeah, I mean, it works for everybody. One of the things I found
00:24:36.720 fascinating with my pub was we would break it down. You know, you could see it so much because
00:24:41.000 it's becoming so cashless. And when you see the tipper cash outs and the tip outs and that there
00:24:46.240 was particular servers who would be considerably higher than the other servers because they're
00:24:50.460 giving a much better experience to the customers and it's coming back to them. And of course,
00:24:53.840 that comes back to me. They're happy customers. They're going to keep coming in. Any, you know,
00:24:58.560 you get that again from the woke, oh, they abuse their staff. They don't pay them enough for all
00:25:02.300 that garbage. Look, you know that you're relying on those employees. You have to treat them well,
00:25:07.740 or it's again, is as bad as having bad food. You're just not going to be in business for long
00:25:11.140 if you abuse them. No, spot on again. You abuse your staff. They're not going to work well.
00:25:18.400 they're going to quit. It's going to be harder to find staff. Our turnover rate is very low
00:25:22.700 because we treat our staff like family. Anytime someone needs that in advance, anytime someone
00:25:27.920 needs clothing, you know, whatever it is, we're always there to help. I don't charge a penny of
00:25:32.080 interest. As long as they pay it back when they have it, I'm happy. They're happy. At the end of
00:25:37.440 the day, we're not just, you know, we're a business, but we also, this is what the woke
00:25:44.560 mob doesn't understand is if you're trying to cancel a business we we have at our location
00:25:48.780 alone 40 to 50 employees and then another 40 to 50 at the other two so we have almost 150 employees
00:25:55.220 you shut us down you're ruining 150 lives these guys got uh kids the bills to pay that's what the
00:26:02.060 the woke mob does doesn't realize is but hurting us you're you're hurting you know uh hundreds
00:26:09.260 hundreds of people you're hurting you're hurting children yeah they don't seem to care i mean if
00:26:14.140 you want to see a sociopathic group get a mob together when they start frothing with the
00:26:18.640 pitchforks and getting out there and they don't care who they hurt. Has there been any incidents?
00:26:22.880 I mean, I see you attract the attention of lunatics and again on Twitter, I'm well aware of, I get all
00:26:26.740 sorts of my inboxes, something special sometimes, but has anybody been harassing your staff directly
00:26:32.960 or any of that so far? I don't get any staff that get harassed. Usually they, my staff likes to stay
00:26:40.500 out of those kinds of things. Um, once in a while, someone will say something on one of the
00:26:45.400 community pages talking crap about us. And I have a server to him might say a couple of things back.
00:26:51.120 Uh, but that's as far as it's gone. I let all these guys know if they have a problem. I mean,
00:26:54.920 the door's always open, come inside. We can have a talk, just buy a drink, buy something and I'll
00:26:59.780 let you in. I'm not going to talk to you for free. No, you're there to make money. And, uh, I'll just,
00:27:06.000 uh, no, that's good. I was good to hear that wasn't happening. Cause I just wouldn't want
00:27:09.340 to hear that happening. Hey, I mean, if they're going to come after you, you're diving into the
00:27:12.000 mix. Let's go, but leave the staff alone. They're there to make a living and give a good service. 0.99
00:27:16.900 Kim Holmes just logged on just to reiterate, just wondering what the supposed issue was. Kim, 0.98
00:27:21.200 it was a matter of Farouk was vocal against the lockdowns, I believe, and some other things that
00:27:26.960 really sort of initiated that. And it just brings the attention of the mob to a business. I'll get
00:27:31.040 to some of the other businesses that did do that and suffered in a minute. I just would also like
00:27:36.500 to point out like some of the stuff you do on your pages is fun uh even if it's uh you know
00:27:40.740 it depends on your type of humor and it reminds me like i said of that paul stenson with the
00:27:44.300 white moose cafe something that i did get a lot of people wound up with i had a problem i was in
00:27:48.280 a rural area with my pub and i get people coming in using my bathroom all the time like it was a
00:27:52.380 public service you know they would come in use the bathroom leave i had to pay seven cents a
00:27:55.560 liter for water we're on water wells like i i'm paying 40 cents a flush when you pinch a loaf in
00:27:59.540 my bathroom buy a drink buy a muffin do something don't just use it so i started posting pictures
00:28:05.060 from my security camera of the people sneaking in and out and using my bathroom and uh boy man
00:28:09.700 people got upset but you know the sense of entitlement on some people again I'm not a
00:28:13.840 charity I'm running a business I mean I offer a bathroom people who know my pub it wasn't the
00:28:18.380 greatest bathroom anyways but it was functional but no I'm not giving it to you for free and I'm
00:28:22.600 not going to apologize for saying I expect something for it but uh posting those things
00:28:28.120 you can have some fun even if even if the people get worked up is what I'm getting at anyways because
00:28:31.680 I noticed you've had quite some interactions with some folks on that page. You push back.
00:28:37.000 Oh yeah. So, I mean, a couple of the other businesses that didn't do as well. I mean,
00:28:42.300 part of it too, as you said, you had an established one already, which helped you have good product,
00:28:46.040 but also you have multiple locations and you're not in the heart of hipsterville. Like when I
00:28:50.080 saw without papers in Inglewood in Calgary, they were standing up against the lockdowns. They were
00:28:55.020 pushing back. They were really, in the end, they did get shut down though. Personally, I think part
00:28:59.400 of that was they were just you couldn't withstand it in that location you were in the heart of
00:29:03.200 woken and uh it just got to them it was sad to see but i was just wondering did you interact
00:29:11.200 with those guys at all or um i didn't interact with them personally um i kept up to date i'd
00:29:17.000 um i'd watch i'm not a news guy i don't like to watch the news but uh with all the covid stuff
00:29:21.140 going on uh relating to businesses especially i kept up to date um i i seen without papers um
00:29:27.420 Chris at the whistle stop sometimes we have contact with him as well he's come down to the
00:29:31.840 restaurant a few times and the thing is with this whole COVID nonsense is what people don't
00:29:38.280 understand is we have to play by the government's rules anybody during the whole COVID situation
00:29:45.220 anybody could report you for anything and it was anonymous we had AHS come in I don't know how many
00:29:49.800 times 20 to 30 times and not once not once did we get a a fine or anything because every time
00:29:56.800 they came in we were following protocol uh that being said i still stood out i still talked about
00:30:02.880 it but um we we had a we had a lot of employees like i said before uh that we had to look out for
00:30:09.440 so we didn't want to we don't want to cross the lines too much because then they could easily
00:30:13.960 shut down your business um like with what happened with uh without papers there yeah and it's
00:30:19.540 difficult when you're a licensed establishment too because the government can use the aglc as a
00:30:24.720 hammer you know if they pull your license i mean food's pretty narrow margin off you need to be
00:30:29.760 selling some liquor to pay those bills and if they pull your license you're out of business
00:30:34.320 yeah they pull your uh they pull your aglc you can't sell liquor uh we have vlt's and all over
00:30:40.280 locations you can't have any of those um and a lot of people don't realize that um ahs they could
00:30:46.960 i'm sure they can pull your like without without papers they can pull your food license your safety
00:30:52.280 and handling license and there goes everything there goes everything you built right um and
00:30:57.320 that's what people don't realize is um these businesses we put everything into them um they
00:31:02.840 that's what pays our bills that's what puts food on the table yeah and i know some people got on
00:31:08.520 the cases of some businesses that did you know abide by the vaccine passports or did shut down
00:31:14.680 or didn't do other things and and they i i felt bad for that but i mean it's still the business
00:31:19.240 well, it wasn't the business owner's choice that they get a lot of cases. They just can't take
00:31:22.340 that chance if their margin's that narrow. It was unfortunate some people got on the case of
00:31:25.880 front-end staff about that. You know, guys, I'm certain that that hostess doesn't want to bother 0.98
00:31:31.380 scanning your vaccine passport. They would much rather bring you straight to a table and get a 0.53
00:31:35.200 better chunk out of that tip pool. But, you know, not every business owner is just has the ability
00:31:40.540 to push back. Unfortunately, the government has such a gun to the head of so many businesses.
00:31:44.100 yeah it's rather unfortunate um everybody knows i i disagreed with all of it um i i never wore a
00:31:52.880 mask um anytime someone came in and they asked me to wear them they'd say hey can i speak to the
00:31:58.780 owner i'd turn around i turn back and i say you're speaking with them what are you going to do go
00:32:04.000 write your go write your shitty one-star review don't come back i'll go call hs let them come in 0.56
00:32:09.520 i'll talk to them um yeah the passport thing was pretty ridiculous and i uh i recall um i think it
00:32:15.360 was the calgary uh the chamber of business yeah before they brought out the vaccines i recall
00:32:24.160 them saying or the vaccine passport sorry i recall them saying that um vaccine passports are actually
00:32:29.680 gonna save uh small businesses and help us because it's gonna make everything safer and the the 0.99
00:32:36.400 second i read that i spoke out i even tagged them in the post and i said listen you guys don't know
00:32:40.880 shit okay this is gonna ruin small businesses more than anything because all you're doing is cutting
00:32:46.480 our our uh our customer base into half and then out of those people that are backs a lot of them
00:32:52.400 still probably don't want to go out and and get their uh uh vaccine passports checked you know
00:32:56.960 that's your own medical history and uh like look what happened i was right uh when that happened
00:33:03.520 you know everybody's sales tanked and the second they got rid of it boom everybody climbed oh yeah
00:33:09.280 well and i've written on it a couple of times the calgary chamber of commerce is a joke i'm
00:33:13.280 going to editorialize for a sec because you brought them up and i've got a particular burn
00:33:16.720 my saddle with them anyways and deborah yedlin you can tell an organization that clearly doesn't
00:33:21.600 know anything about running a business going fast forward to yeah they were supporting the passport
00:33:26.000 saying it would increase business which was dead wrong she also came out opposing getting rid of
00:33:31.280 of the passport. And she said, when you get rid of that passport, business is going to slow down
00:33:35.980 because people will be afraid to come out. She was proven to be full of shit. I mean, every business 0.98
00:33:40.900 got better business. I mean, if that was the case, others, there was only one, it was a bar on 8th
00:33:45.120 Avenue. They said, we're going to keep the passport system. And all these hipsters were 1.00
00:33:48.560 applauding it online. It lasted a week. And it's, you know, even if you mean it, I mean, if you're
00:33:54.460 running a big bar, if you've got a group of five who are going to come to your place and one of
00:33:58.500 them isn't going to show the vaccine passport, they're not going to go, the whole group of five 1.00
00:34:02.040 is going to go somewhere else. So just by math, whether you agree or not agree with the passports,
00:34:07.280 it's not good for business. Nobody who has even a gram of principle, you know, business idea
00:34:11.840 would think so. And it's abhorrent that the head of a chamber of commerce would say that kind of
00:34:16.580 crap. Yeah. Uh, it's pretty embarrassing to be honest. Um, I don't pay attention. I don't know
00:34:22.740 who this Deborah Yavalin girl is. I know the business you're speaking of was Ship and Anchor.
00:34:30.100 And like you said, they lasted a week because they probably realized, hey,
00:34:36.600 our sales aren't going up. People are going other places. We have a million competitors
00:34:40.600 right beside us. They're going to leave here and go there. So they backtracked pretty quick. And
00:34:45.220 I thought it was pretty hilarious, to be honest. Well, yeah. And as I said, I mean, say even,
00:34:50.600 and I don't know the numbers people have all sorts of numbers say even only 10% of the people
00:34:54.800 didn't have a vaccine passport which I think was higher than that well you take a 10% out of the
00:35:00.740 pool of sales you could get and as I said it's bigger than that because you're going to lose
00:35:03.980 groups because other people are just not going to go there but people weren't listening to business
00:35:10.060 owners they were listening to politicians they were listening to activists they were listening
00:35:13.340 to you know people like Yedlin who was it was a business writer before she took over the chamber
00:35:18.200 she she's never as far as I could tell run a small business because again none would be able to say 0.98
00:35:22.340 that sort of thing with a straight face but most of their intent was to embarrass Jason Kenney
00:35:26.460 you know and try and they were hoping for a disaster when he lifted the passports
00:35:30.140 but that's a separate issue all together as well so business now though I mean we're going into
00:35:38.580 2023 this should hopefully be what our first restriction-free year in some years is it going
00:35:43.440 well for you guys as you said you're expanding you got another location you're looking at now
00:35:46.620 um yeah actually uh so i went over the yearly sales the other day and um so from 2020 to 2021
00:35:54.560 uh we dipped like i'm guessing most businesses did because we were facing restrictions that year
00:35:59.200 we dipped about 6.5 percent uh but luckily for us we have a strong takeout um most of our food you
00:36:05.320 know pasta pizza whatever it is is built for takeout we're not like a fine dining restaurant
00:36:08.800 where you know they're screwed during the whole thing because people are going out to eat they're
00:36:12.440 not going to order to go from them but anyways we went down 6.5 percent in 2021 and then from
00:36:17.780 2021 to 2022 last year we went up about 18 percent so uh numbers are strong um we're expanding um
00:36:26.400 we're coming up with a lot of new projects i just spent eighty thousand dollars on a brand new jeep
00:36:31.660 gladiator uh to take around to events and uh yeah we'll see how 2023 goes i think it's going to be
00:36:37.160 a good year to be honest well good i i think what we saw some social media comments people whining
00:36:41.900 about the way you drive your gladiator though uh there's some risks you're gonna have when you're
00:36:46.340 driving a driving billboard when you get some of the lunatics around uh hopefully you don't get
00:36:50.220 anything thrown at it or anything like that oh yeah I mean that's always in the back of my mind
00:36:54.620 um I had a cop the first night I actually picked it up tailed me for five minutes all the way to
00:36:58.700 my house and uh I made sure I wasn't speeding um and I thought in my head I said if this guy pulls
00:37:04.320 me over I'm gonna tell him sorry bro read the sign we don't sell donuts um luckily he didn't
00:37:09.660 pull me over and um you know someone someone vandalizes my car that's just more more power
00:37:15.860 for us right that's just showing that you know the woke mob aren't um aren't uh whatever they
00:37:21.580 say they are they're all nice and uh open-minded and accepting and caring that's that's all that
00:37:26.860 will prove we already know it's wrong but it'll just prove it even more yeah no they're they're
00:37:31.560 vindictive uh you know to use the term has been beaten to death but it's true they're a bunch of
00:37:35.360 Karen's who can't just accept that. Okay, fine. You don't like that place. Leave it alone. Don't
00:37:39.680 go there. Don't eat there. Go somewhere else. This isn't that complicated, but they can't live that
00:37:43.400 way. They have to interfere. They have to try and shut it down. And as I said, I really appreciate
00:37:48.540 what you're doing because it stands as a symbol for other businesses and other people to realize
00:37:52.620 that these are toothless tigers. They're jerks. They can cause a little bit of short-term damage,
00:37:56.920 but in the long run, they're nobody, they're nothing. And if you stand up to them, it'll pay
00:38:00.960 off in the long run. I mean, you're doing great for a number of reasons. I don't think it's just
00:38:04.520 because of your business stance, obviously you're running a good business while you're at it as
00:38:07.600 well, but it's just important. And you know, the mob, they only have power if you give it to them.
00:38:14.400 Yeah, I agree a hundred percent, man. The more you stay quiet, the hungry and the more powerful
00:38:20.540 they're going to get. To your other point, yeah, exactly. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.
00:38:26.440 I mean, there's a lot of people and places and businesses that I don't like. I'm not going to go
00:38:31.100 and spend all day on their social media, reading every post,
00:38:35.360 arguing with every single commenter.
00:38:36.980 I mean, who does that?
00:38:38.400 Do something with your life.
00:38:39.840 Do something better.
00:38:41.140 I mean, wake up, look at yourself in the mirror,
00:38:43.860 and meditate, smoke some weed, get laid. 0.54
00:38:48.320 I don't freaking know.
00:38:49.380 Do something to keep you happy and do something good for the world.
00:38:54.760 Yeah, anything's more productive than going and picking away at other people.
00:38:58.080 Well, I really appreciate what you're doing.
00:38:59.400 I appreciate you coming on to talk to us today, Farouk.
00:39:02.020 Maybe one last time, you can kind of let people know where they can find your businesses
00:39:06.300 and where they can find you online.
00:39:08.680 So we have three locations, one in Airdrie, one in Calgary, Shaughnessy, one in Calgary
00:39:13.700 Northeast off 32nd, right off Barlow.
00:39:16.480 You could also visit our website, www.pauls.pizza.
00:39:20.400 I have an Instagram account.
00:39:21.860 I have a Facebook account.
00:39:23.120 I don't use Twitter, TikTok, any of the other crap.
00:39:28.080 That's basically it.
00:39:29.160 And thank you, Corey, for having me on the show.
00:39:31.300 And I appreciate it.
00:39:32.280 Right on.
00:39:32.820 Well, and I'll be sure to get another pizza out of you soon.
00:39:34.940 I'll try to drag Jane up to Airdrie one of these days and have a sit down up that way. 1.00
00:39:38.320 Will do.
00:39:38.920 Shots on me.
00:39:40.420 All right.
00:39:40.980 Hot.
00:39:41.260 Okay.
00:39:42.060 Well, thanks again.
00:39:43.180 And we'll hopefully see you sometime soon.
00:39:46.060 So for everybody, yes, that was Farouk Assault.
00:39:50.040 Elsa here in full.
00:39:52.460 And yes, of Paul's Pizza.
00:39:53.720 I just find it refreshing.
00:39:55.300 You know, get on the back of the mob.
00:39:57.200 Push back at them.
00:39:58.140 don't take their garbage and you know they're not going away uh we're seeing that sort of thing i
00:40:02.760 mean think of it on the grand scope i guess the cancel mob they just won't lay off there's something
00:40:08.600 that's been a story on recently uh or jordan peterson you know they're going after his
00:40:14.540 psychology license now he's going to have to go to some hearings they're talking about putting
00:40:18.160 him through some social media sensitivity training or some sort of crap they're looking to pull the
00:40:22.700 man's professional license because they don't like his policies. Why? How vindictive are you?
00:40:28.880 What is your problem? What does this have to do with his ability to practice as a psychologist?
00:40:35.960 But the mob won't lay off. The difference in part of why they hate Jordan Peterson,
00:40:40.000 this is where it all started. Nobody heard of Peterson, aside from a small group of people
00:40:44.720 in universities and academia, until they tried to force him to use gender pronouns.
00:40:49.200 And he finally put his foot down and said, blow it out your ass. I'm going to call you he, him. I'm not doing this stupid Zzerza stuff. And he put his foot down. And that's what drove the mob bananas. How dare he not just cave? How dare he not apologize? How dare he not stop? And there's the irony of it, because then they took an obscure professor of psychology and turned him into what now is one of the most internationally well-known people around. 1.00
00:41:16.540 I mean, his book sales have gone through the roof and people have gone after his books. Guys,
00:41:20.500 it's a self-help book. The first thing I think it tells you in that book with the 12 principles is
00:41:24.920 to make your bed. And I think the last one is, is to make sure always to pet a cat when you go buy
00:41:28.940 it, but they call it controversial. The cancel mob made Jordan Peterson rich and they're still
00:41:36.060 coming after him. But you see, if he'd have just bent, if he'd have said, okay, I'm sorry, I'll
00:41:40.700 refer to that weird lone person in the back of the room, whoever the anonymous one who made what the
00:41:44.960 complaint was. And yes, you are now Z and Zer. Do you think his career would have gone better? 0.86
00:41:49.980 Do you think they would have laid off on him? No, he would have probably eventually been
00:41:54.980 canceled and shuffled out, lost tenure and the rest and had gone as a professor. But instead,
00:42:00.180 he pushed back and not only did it save his own career, it backfired. It was pure Streisand effect.
00:42:07.020 And he's now a much more powerful person than he ever was. They created Jordan Peterson
00:42:12.720 and uh good on them and you know paul's pizza i keep saying because i don't want to undercut that
00:42:18.640 the important thing is you got good product you got good staff because it doesn't matter what
00:42:22.100 sort of political stance you make if your pizza's crap and you abuse your staff you're going out of
00:42:25.320 business soon but i bet you there's got to be a degree of increased sales just due to the fact of
00:42:30.660 look at the amount of attention how many pizza places have tens of thousands of followers on
00:42:35.940 their facebook page come on what an opportunity to get the ear of people free advertising put them
00:42:42.080 on the mind. Like I saw one of the commenters saying, I heard this conversation. It's making
00:42:45.080 me crave a pizza. Yeah, that's how the business works. The more you can talk about it, you give
00:42:48.940 that craving, they pick up the phone, they order a pizza, or they go in and they grab a bite and
00:42:52.180 have a drink. It backfired. If Farouk hadn't been pushing back, hadn't had that giant social media 0.99
00:42:58.280 falling, I'm still pretty confident is a pizza places would be doing great. But I got a feeling
00:43:02.660 that the sales would actually be a little smaller. The cancel mob has actually helped him out.
00:43:06.420 He didn't let it beat him down. He turned it into an advantage. And that is something businesses
00:43:12.300 have got to keep watching for. Again, he was well-placed to be able to do it. Not every
00:43:16.760 business is necessarily comfortable or in that place to do it. I mean, it's not necessarily the
00:43:21.440 thing for them to do, but just don't cave when they start coming after you. Another one that
00:43:26.160 was interesting, it's a restaurant down in South Calgary. It's called Benny's. It's a breakfast
00:43:30.020 place. It's down by the Ikea for people who know Calgary. But he pushed back against the passports,
00:43:37.160 I believe, and some of the other aspects. In the end, he ended up kind of caving and reopening,
00:43:40.660 but he was very vocal and visible. And there was a hospitality group on Facebook I follow
00:43:45.240 because I was still on there from when I owned the bar as well. And he just put a thing up saying
00:43:49.980 he was looking for staff for Benny's, you know, because he needs, you know, all of these places
00:43:55.640 need good staff right now. And suddenly these people came out of the woodwork. Oh, don't work
00:44:00.500 for him. He's a son of a bitch. He's this, he's that. He was opposed to closing down. He wouldn't
00:44:05.380 go with the vaccine passports. He was just looking to hire staff and they polluted his ad with this 1.00
00:44:11.440 response. I went there, would it be November perhaps? You know, I live in Prittis. I only
00:44:18.020 dine in the city so much. Hey, the standard's great to me, but I only got so much money. I can
00:44:21.260 only eat so many times outside, but it was fantastic. It was packed. Obviously the mob
00:44:26.920 has not shut him down, even though if they want to pester him on social media and get on his case.
00:44:31.880 And it was full of people having breakfast. The service was fantastic. He obviously found some
00:44:37.020 good staff and he's doing, I'm sure quite well for himself. So again, he didn't back down to
00:44:42.180 the mob and it worked. It worked for him. Won't necessarily work for everybody, but it worked
00:44:46.640 for him. So let's, you know, don't give the mob power, guys. It's not worth it. I'm sure there's
00:44:51.940 not a week goes by where somebody, I gotta, you know, I should make this point too. It's not just
00:44:57.060 the left. It's mostly the left, but it's not just them. And when I, I mean, as on Twitter, I've got
00:45:04.740 a lot of people wound up with me these days and so on. I'm not anti-vaccination. I'm anti-mandate.
00:45:09.960 I'm anti-passport. I've always been. I'm pro-choice. But some of the very, very dedicated
00:45:17.820 anti-vaccination people get very upset with me when I say that. And I get more emails that come
00:45:23.640 to the Western Standard demanding I be fired when I say something like I don't have a problem with
00:45:29.080 vaccination than when I do something that pisses off the left. So be careful, guys. It's not a
00:45:34.900 trait that's just among one side of the spectrum or the other. What I think it is is a trait among
00:45:38.920 to people who get too far to the extreme. If you find yourself trying to cancel others, step back
00:45:44.480 a second and think about it maybe. Maybe you've gone a little too far. Maybe it's time to drift
00:45:48.140 a little back. And as I said, people are guilty on both sides of that. It's just that I think the
00:45:53.420 left is a hell of a lot worse at it than the right though. But all right, let's turn the page and get
00:45:58.160 on to a bit of other stuff now. Speaking of myths being broken, this is an interesting one. Polar
00:46:03.560 bears. They've become more plentiful. Look at that, eh? Yes, even though we've been hearing
00:46:10.440 about the polar bears, they're all going to die. They're going to be, you know, running out. We're
00:46:14.320 just going to have stuffed ones or ones at the zoo and everything. Well, the numbers are in and
00:46:18.360 they're up 16,000 in the territories estimated and just seems that the more we do, the more
00:46:25.160 polar bears we've got. But the myths don't stop, do they? I mean, how much did we hear about it
00:46:29.720 with the, you know, they're going to drown, they're going to be dying out there in the works.
00:46:34.020 I'll tell you, let's talk about how science can work when you've got a bias with it. I've talked
00:46:37.700 about that on here before. I did four years working in the Arctic. Three of those were out
00:46:42.200 on the Delta and up north of Tuck. I even actually got to see one wild polar bear. It was really cool.
00:46:46.700 It was a neat life experience. Up there, though, with a lot of the scientists, they don't have the
00:46:51.860 money or the interest necessarily to go far enough out onto the ocean to where those polar bears are.
00:46:57.540 They'll do their study from a population base somewhere, say like Tuk-Tayak-Tuk. 0.70
00:47:01.340 The problem is, it's really hard to find a polar bear within 100 kilometers of Tuk-Tayak-Tuk
00:47:06.120 because the local hunters have high-power rifles and snowmobiles,
00:47:09.940 and polar bears aren't equipped to fight that. 0.73
00:47:12.400 And I'm not saying that we should ban the indigenous hunters or any of that crap. 1.00
00:47:15.600 What I'm pointing out, though, is you're not going to find a lot of them in those areas.
00:47:19.240 The study areas they're hitting do have lowered polar bear populations,
00:47:22.880 but it doesn't have anything to do with global warming.
00:47:24.680 It doesn't have anything to do with oil and gas development.
00:47:26.980 It has to do with 1,200 indigenous hunters living in a town up there
00:47:31.680 that can chase them down with a snowmobile and shoot them with a .303.
00:47:35.460 That will reduce the population.
00:47:37.840 And they're not stupid bears, so the other ones learn to stay back from those populated areas.
00:47:43.440 Either way, they're turning into a pest in some areas in Labrador, you know, northern Manitoba, Churchill.
00:47:49.460 I don't want to see the wholesale slaughter of bears or anything like that.
00:47:52.320 But it's just one of those mythological things that, oh my God,
00:47:55.000 the polar bears are all going to disappear. They aren't. They're going up. They're getting stronger.
00:48:00.280 So let's just keep reading the news. Let's keep watching the things and watch for those
00:48:03.380 studies. As I said, when you study around Tuck, you're going to find bugger all for polar bears.
00:48:08.480 If you could find the budget to get a camp out on the ice, like we were stuck in in the Arctic
00:48:12.000 Star out there, there's more polar bears because we're not hunting them. We were looking for oil
00:48:15.920 and gas. Check your news carefully. It was when the studies come out. It's amazing how they can
00:48:22.820 twist things. Here's one more before I'll get to our egg commodities check in here. This is a neat
00:48:28.740 one. The lockdowns helped us meet our climate goal. Finally, we found a way to reach our climate
00:48:33.220 goals. All we had to do is shut down the economy, make everybody broke and miserable. Actually,
00:48:37.280 we always knew that was the only way they're going to do it. Shouldn't be celebrated by any
00:48:41.860 means. But there's a report saying we finally had emissions fall 9%. Yeah, in 2020. That's because
00:48:47.380 you ban everybody from traveling, you lock them in their houses, and you shut down commerce. And
00:48:51.640 we're still trying to recover from it today. It tells you just what we will have to do
00:48:58.700 to meet those climate goals. And it's not worth it, guys. Let's do things to clean up. Let's take
00:49:05.800 our time. But we are going to get into some very dear trouble if we try to actually meet that. I
00:49:11.000 mean, that's only a 9% reduction with what we had to put the economy through. Could you imagine
00:49:14.860 what it would take, what we would have to do to the economy to actually meet the goals that
00:49:19.360 Trudeau likes to keep setting and failing at. All right. Let's check in with Marketplace
00:49:25.240 Commodities with Jim Bujicum and see what's happening out there in the ag world, the people
00:49:31.280 producing and feeding and selling us those goods. Hey, Jim, good to see you back after your Christmas
00:49:36.040 break. How's it going? Hey, good, good. Happy New Year, Corey. It's good to see you again. And
00:49:41.020 stuff that I've got here is kind of boring compared to what you're talking about.
00:49:44.440 uh its markets so where do you want me to start this year it's boring but it's important i mean
00:49:51.160 hey if i'm not well fed or can't afford my my market commodities i won't have the energy to
00:49:55.640 rant and piss everybody off so there you go all very important well i mean let's start running 0.54
00:50:02.200 down we've got a new year starting uh looking i guess at some of the commodity trends i mean
00:50:07.480 pricing through uh jan you know 2022 uh now going into 23 sure i'll give you some comparisons a year
00:50:15.400 ago so january 22 to now and run through some of the major commodities canola january 22 was
00:50:22.120 1012 it's right now uh sitting at 870 so it's down 15 over 12 months corn 599 per bushel now
00:50:31.560 $6.56 per bushel, up 9.5%. Soybeans $13.40 per bushel, now $14.77 per bushel, that's up 10% over
00:50:40.600 a year. Minneapolis hard wheat, which would be our Canadian red spring wheat, in US dollars $9.82 per
00:50:47.480 bushel, now it's $9.33, it's down 5% over one year. Beet barley is flat $4.45 a year ago versus $4.45
00:50:55.480 today. So you may think, oh, it's a sink for one year. No, there's actually a big price range.
00:50:59.860 we seen that range from a low of 350 per ton in august to um you know even up into the 475s which
00:51:09.600 was back last summer as well so a lot of price range on barley and if i take a look at the
00:51:16.240 canadian dollar it moved down six percent over the year from 78 65 to 74.09 and hey because it's
00:51:24.840 always fun to throw something else in how about that bitcoin if you were hedging inflation on
00:51:29.080 bitcoin you didn't have a great 22 47 120 at the start of 22 down to 16 845 down 65 so that wasn't
00:51:39.800 a real fun ride for those playing in that one but in our world the commodity market canola grains
00:51:45.000 etc they are still actually really high we're still trading the top 10 under all-time highs
00:51:52.120 And that's where we start 23 with actually quite solid commodity markets.
00:51:58.440 For the first three days of this trading year, we've seen the markets drop roughly,
00:52:02.680 you know, one, 2%. So it's been on the down Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so excuse me,
00:52:07.800 Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday was a holiday. So that's where we're starting. And we've got the
00:52:11.400 whole year in front of us. See what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a, well, I started with
00:52:15.400 a modest Bitcoin account and it got more modest over the course of the year, but there's still
00:52:19.080 a little bit in there uh i mean it's not going to help me retire any earlier at this point
00:52:24.360 an interesting thing that you mentioned like with barley even though yes technically it's flat but
00:52:28.200 it's had its ups and downs i mean that kind of points to the importance though of of watching
00:52:32.600 i mean when you're going to buy when you're going to sell it it really makes a big difference on
00:52:36.200 what your margins are going to be you have to know and watch those markets to maximize i mean
00:52:41.640 at different points through the year you could have had a 10 or 20 difference in what that was
00:52:45.080 worth them yeah absolutely it's all in the timing if you are selling these
00:52:50.420 commodities or you're a buyer of these commodities as you can see there's a lot
00:52:55.160 of range within a within a year so it's important to use the calendar year use
00:53:01.480 as much time as possible to and be very proactive with your buying and selling
00:53:06.200 so that yeah hopefully you get it if you're selling hopefully you don't sell
00:53:10.820 to Lowe's and catch some of the highs I mean you're not gonna catch all the
00:53:14.500 highs. That's just ridiculous. I think you could, but try to get somewhere in the middle.
00:53:19.080 Yeah. Well, and I guess it's just trying to watch all those variables that are out there.
00:53:22.940 One that I heard about recently, I never really thought of, but how much does energy prices impact
00:53:27.920 some of the commodities when it comes to like corn and some of those that get it dedicated to
00:53:31.860 ethanol rather than food. So I guess if energy prices are going higher, it becomes more worthwhile
00:53:36.740 to dedicate crops towards that. So it'll have a price impact on it, right?
00:53:41.300 yeah absolutely the biofuels market is a really big thing so the higher the energy price is the
00:53:46.260 more incentive there is is to take food and feed and convert it into fuel so our oil seeds such as
00:53:52.580 canola or soybeans convert it into diesel or take in corn and wheat and convert it into ethanol
00:54:00.260 that's a big factor the other thing is high energy prices mean also high fertilizer prices
00:54:06.740 so when the costs of fertilizer are ramped up and availability of fertilizer has been
00:54:13.380 actually quite low as well with some other issues in it going on that also eventually pushes grain
00:54:21.060 prices up now to to further add to that um fertilizer prices are actually on the downtrend
00:54:27.380 right now and significantly lower so i think for 2023 that's uh something to really keep a good
00:54:33.780 eye on. If we're seeing energy prices, oil, gas, fertilizer, et cetera, all down, the likelihood
00:54:42.580 is that the grain markets, the commodity markets that we trade oil seeds, even pulses, maybe not
00:54:47.300 pulses so much, but oil seeds and grains could follow that same trend. They likely will. I think
00:54:55.700 we're still at the top 10% of the all-time price range. We're probably just at the start of that
00:54:59.380 the downtrend right now. Yeah, well, we're going in the year with stuff seems to be trending up
00:55:03.940 for the time being. So, well, I'm sure you'll constantly be watching it carefully and
00:55:08.380 advising your clients based on that. You bet. Thanks, Corey.
00:55:13.120 Thanks, Jim. We'll talk again next week. All right. Take care. Bye-bye.
00:55:16.780 And for those of you listening on the audio, that's Jim Buzicum from marketplacecommodities.com
00:55:22.300 or you can phone them at 403-394-1711. Again, you know, it's agribusiness is important. You
00:55:28.860 want to maximize what you're doing. And that's what these guys specialize in. They can tell you
00:55:35.080 what's good and bad in it. So looking at some of the commenting, I see, yeah, I noticed and I
00:55:41.420 blocked it actually. There was an account spamming there with some weird comments over and over about
00:55:47.600 the convoy. And it was getting, once there was a comment from that one that was actually
00:55:53.100 untrue. I blocked it. I typically don't block things on there often if I can help it. But if
00:55:59.820 you're going to spam the comment thing, you're going to get blocked. And you know, it's funny
00:56:03.500 just to talk about free speech, talk about canceling. I block people on Twitter and people
00:56:07.480 get howling about that and everything. You don't respect free speech. A lot of people don't seem
00:56:10.760 to understand free speech. If I block somebody on here, I block somebody on Twitter, you can still
00:56:15.220 speak. You just can't speak on my platform. You can scream your head off in your bedroom. You can
00:56:19.960 set up your own YouTube channel. You can get your own Twitter account. You just can't piggyback on
00:56:25.480 mine to do so. And it doesn't mean I'm not respecting your free speech. If I try to shut
00:56:30.200 you down, then I'm not valuing free speech. And I'm not, I'm just shutting you off my stuff.
00:56:35.580 So, uh, you know, I, again, I respect free speech. It doesn't mean I have to listen to everybody
00:56:40.180 though. You can speak all you want, but you got to speak about better things before you get me
00:56:44.580 to dedicate my time to you. Uh, let's see that, you know, the top story at the standard here,
00:56:49.280 getting into weird and unfortunate things so a texas father lost custody of a seven-year-old son
00:56:54.480 which allows the mother to transition the child from male to female um you know i this one sounds
00:57:02.720 like so it made a lot of headlines there's a custody battle uh the the father is saying now
00:57:08.560 that the mother could start using hormone suppression therapy puberty blockers and things 0.95
00:57:12.240 like that. I think Texan law still says she can't, but I just, guys, it's a seven-year-old kid.
00:57:20.960 You know, if somebody's 18 says, I'm, you know, physiologically a man, but I identify as a woman,
00:57:26.880 I want to transition. Good. If you're really confident in it and that's where you want to go,
00:57:31.920 by all means, go surgically, go just by dressing, identify as, I'll respect the pronouns once you 0.56
00:57:38.000 you tell me, you know, if I find you respectful, I don't mind telling you, referring to people
00:57:43.480 by the gender as they prefer. I just don't like being forced. But seven years old, come
00:57:48.920 on. And if this mother really, you know, like I tweeted out, you know, when I was seven,
00:57:55.820 I think I wanted to be an astronaut for a little while. It didn't mean the world owed
00:57:59.180 me a rocket ship so I could fly to the moon. You don't indulge everything that a five to
00:58:03.700 seven-year-old says it changes with the wind. No, the problem here is with the parents and they want
00:58:09.720 to make, they're warping their child. And this is problematic. And I'm not saying that people
00:58:16.280 who transition later are warped. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that I don't think children
00:58:20.680 are really concerning themselves with gender identity that much when they're that age. It's
00:58:24.480 the parent or parents putting that into them and it's causing confusion and it's harming the child
00:58:29.320 and it's selfish. It's in a parent who's looking for attention. It's almost a, what, Munchausen
00:58:35.020 by proxy in a sense of putting, again, something onto the child so you can bring attention to
00:58:39.400 yourself. And it's child abuse. And unfortunately, it's gotten to a point now where a guy can lose
00:58:44.520 custody if he questions that child abuse. We're getting too far. We've got to allow common sense
00:58:50.880 to infiltrate tolerance. And we're going way into the level of bizarre when you're going to try and
00:58:58.940 claim that a seven-year-old, and this is, this case has been going on for years. She's been saying
00:59:03.440 he, and I'm going to say he still at this point, was transitioning at five. Come on, let's get real.
00:59:10.440 But the courts are indulging this crap. It's going to be, unfortunately, a very screwed up child who
00:59:16.060 probably won't be able to interact or see his parents down the road. Just brutal. Leading off
00:59:24.360 one last thing, the Rosencrown. I saw some people talking about it. Yeah, that's a bar in Calgary.
00:59:28.940 It's been established for a long time.
00:59:30.240 Somebody mentioned the Canmore one.
00:59:31.660 I don't know if that one's closing or not,
00:59:33.820 but the one in Calgary is closing.
00:59:34.860 It's been open for almost 30 years, 30 some years, I think.
00:59:38.160 If you read about it, he had problems with the landlord,
00:59:40.700 but also the margins, again, we're just getting too tight.
00:59:43.460 Something that's going to be happening this year, though,
00:59:46.360 is that the business loans, the CBA loans,
00:59:49.660 for support for CERB, like for the pandemic, for the lockdowns.
00:59:53.740 They were interest-free loans.
00:59:54.660 They were very generous.
00:59:55.480 They had good terms on them.
00:59:56.700 but this year those loans have to be paid back or the interest starts tacking on to it and I think
01:00:01.880 a few businesses now when 2023 hits they're starting to look at their books and if they're
01:00:05.940 kind of marginal if they're kind of tight they might say you know what I've had enough this is
01:00:11.620 the time to pull the pin I don't want to be paying interest on these things we I got a feeling we
01:00:15.860 might be in for a good year in a lot of ways but there's going to be some downturns in other ones
01:00:19.580 speaking of which get on to the western standard Nigel Hannaford our opinion editor put together
01:00:24.060 They're a fantastic series, all sorts of columns
01:00:26.560 from a lot of our contributors all over the place
01:00:28.920 on positive notes looking forward to 2023.
01:00:31.880 Read some stuff that'll bring you up.
01:00:33.120 I'm always crabbing and going on about the negative,
01:00:35.280 but there's a lot of positive in there.
01:00:36.560 There's a lot of good things to look forward to
01:00:37.880 and a lot of smart people wrote some fantastic pieces.
01:00:40.520 So check those out on thewesternstandard.com.
01:00:42.460 Take out a membership.
01:00:43.300 I forgot to mention that earlier.
01:00:44.660 That's how we pay our bills.
01:00:45.740 That's how the government doesn't shut us down.
01:00:48.720 And yes, tune in tonight for the pipeline.
01:00:50.820 Mel Rizdin has her fantastic shows gone.
01:00:52.860 David Creighton's show has been excellent, by the way.
01:00:55.620 Tune in on his stuff.
01:00:57.280 And as far as that goes, I will see the rest of you all next week at this time.
01:01:02.220 Thanks for tuning in, guys.
01:01:22.860 You