Western Standard's Tucker Day and the rest of the Western Standard's team are covering a variety of breaking news events happening in Canada today, including the latest on the Edmonton shooter, a federal judge ruling that the Trudeau government's use of the War Measures Act was unconstitutional, and more.
00:00:41.500Well, I survived last week, so they let me take control of the show again.
00:00:45.380We have an exciting show for you today.
00:00:47.020John Rustad, the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party, is here to talk about his vision for B.C. and the upcoming provincial election this October.
00:04:04.720And starting in BC, about two years ago, truckers began a convoy for freedom.
00:04:09.920Like a Chinook wind, the convoy picked up momentum across the prairies.
00:04:13.840And by the time they hit the Manitoba border, they numbered in the hundreds.
00:04:17.640Highways were lined with Canadians cheering them on.
00:04:19.880Finally, they converged on Ottawa, and they made one simple statement.
00:04:24.880The honking will continue until freedom improves.
00:04:27.980These Canadians, these truckers, these families, begged to meet with their elected leaders to make their case that the Liberals had gone too far for too long.
00:04:36.220Instead, they were met with tear gas and trampled by horses.
00:04:40.360The War Measures Act was a law adopted by the Canadian government in 1914 at the start of the First World War.
00:04:46.120Under it, the Canadian government could censor and suppress communications, arrest, detain, or deport people without charges or trials, control transportation, trade, and manufacturing, and seize private property.
00:04:59.740The act was used again in the Second World War, and once more by Trudeau Sr. during the FLQ crisis in Quebec.
00:05:07.580In 1988, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney replaced the War Measures Act with the Emergencies Act, an updated law for an updated time.
00:05:16.380It contains a clear definition of national emergency and outlines how serious the circumstances must be for its use.
00:05:25.220It defines a national emergency as an urgent, temporary, and critical situation endangering the health and safety of Canadians or threatening the ability of the federal government to preserve Canada's sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.
00:05:40.720A national emergency is a situation that cannot be dealt with by the provinces and territories or any other law in Canada.
00:05:49.060And now if federal judges confirmed what we already knew, no national emergency existed.
00:05:54.680Protests at Coutts and the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario had already ended, and the truckers in Ottawa had begun moving at the request of police.
00:06:02.700And still the Liberals pushed ahead, seizing bank accounts of convoy participants and supporters alike.
00:06:09.840Canadians from coast to coast were subject to unlawful search and seizure and treated like the very worst terrorists.
00:06:20.080A glimmer of hope that our judicial system exists to protect the right of individual Canadians.
00:06:25.660Deputy Prime Minister Freeland says she respects the independent judiciary.
00:06:30.440Well, I think Jody Wilson-Raybould would have something to say about that.
00:06:34.260But respect or not, her government will appeal.
00:06:36.640Well, the quote, the court decision finds in certain respects that the decisions of the government were valid and within constitutional parameters, and in other respects, it finds it was not.
00:06:48.340That's like saying it's okay to drink and drive because you were wearing your seatbelt and didn't speed.
00:06:53.840The family you ran over in the crosswalk be damned.
00:10:00.000So, when the court ruling came out, which vindicated the trucking movement, which vindicated and showed that what government did was a huge overreach and shouldn't have happened, I thought, you know what?
00:10:10.620It's time for politicians that made a mistake to be able to stand up and own it and just say, look, we're sorry, you know, we apologize for condemning the freedom movement.
00:10:20.440And so, that's what I've asked David Eby, the Premier of British Columbia, as well as Kevin Falken, the leader of the United Party, and all of their members to do.
00:10:29.020Just put out a statement, apologize for it, and let's move on.
00:10:32.160Because, you know, I thought it was wrong.
00:10:34.880But it was actually quite amazing to see the United Party and the NDP actually voting against freedom and against the freedom movement.
00:10:43.680But then again, you know, in British Columbia, we're always known for left-wing politics.
00:10:48.460And, you know, that's why I often say three lefts doesn't make it right.
00:10:53.620It's fascinating to see how many politicians, especially to the left on the spectrum, still, even after the ruling came out, they said, you know, that Canada's national security and our economic security was a threat.
00:11:08.380And that's why they needed to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:11:10.980Do you think that our national security was ever a threat?
00:11:30.540You know, I think there needs to be freedoms and freedoms of choice, particularly when it comes to things like our health care and over, you know, our own bodies.
00:11:37.320I'm called a danger to democracy by the leader of the NDP.
00:11:43.240I'm called, you know, radical and a danger to democracy.
00:11:46.620And I understand why, because it's a danger to their form of democracy.
00:11:50.440They have a very authoritarian approach in terms of how they want to do things.
00:12:50.360In Alberta, in Saskatchewan, there's been a push from certain people that they would like to see the RCMP replaced with a provincial police force or more municipal police force.
00:13:00.220But if Daniel Smith or Scott Moe did what the B.C. government is doing, there would be outrage.
00:13:06.620It would be, they're just disrespecting the municipalities.
00:13:10.820They're, you know, they're the problem with democracy.
00:13:13.100And here we have, you know, an actual leader that is pushing through something that the people don't want.
00:13:19.060But you're the threat to democracy for supporting freedom.
00:13:23.220And this is why I support direct democracy.
00:13:24.860If we're going to do this, like, for example, British Columbia, if we were to consider going to a provincial police force, and there's some that think that we should go in that direction, let's get all the information out to the people.
00:13:35.100Let's show them what the costs are, what it looks like, what the benefits are, what the pros and cons for each option, and then have a referendum.
00:13:57.500You can see in Alberta how the United Conservative Party has pushed more direct democracy.
00:14:03.480So, with exiting the Canada pension plan, they've committed that they're actually not going to do anything until there's a referendum on the subject.
00:14:11.120So, under you, as you, as the Premier of BC, would there be more referendum?
00:14:16.000Would there be more questions put on municipal ballots and stuff like that in the future?
00:14:21.520Now, you don't want to do it for everything, right?
00:14:23.520I mean, you're elected as a representative.
00:14:26.020Your representative is to represent the people on the decisions that need to be made.
00:14:29.880However, when there are big decisions, I think it's important to be able to go to people and have a referendum.
00:14:34.560So, for example, last spring, I think it was February or in that area, I actually moved forward a motion in the legislature to say that there should be no new taxes or no increased taxes unless it's done by referendum.
00:14:48.900Why wouldn't we go to people and say, look, make the case if we need more money, we'll make the case and say, you know, are you willing to give more money because this is the benefit?
00:14:56.280And if people say no, then government's got to live within its means and figure out, you know, how to balance those books and how to deal with the issues that need to be done.
00:15:04.160This is the kind of thing that I think people need to be involved in to renew our democracy because, quite frankly, you know, as you see with these more authoritarian approaches, both, you know, federally and provincially, certainly in British Columbia, it's an erosion of our democracy and it's erosion of our freedoms.
00:15:19.500So, that actually comes to another thing, speaking of taxes and a referendum on taxes, BC has, I believe, the first and oldest carbon tax in the country and the cost of living is out of control.
00:15:31.900Vancouver and the Lower Mainland is one of the most expensive areas on this planet to live.
00:15:38.560Real estate, especially for millennials, is completely out of reach and if you're living or if you're working in Vancouver, in Vancouver Metro, you're living out in the suburbs and you're commuting, if you're lucky.
00:15:49.220Yeah, so, and that also comes to pipelines and home heating.
00:15:55.000So, would you have a referendum then on scrapping the carbon tax?
00:15:59.200Would you follow Pierre Polyev's lead and if the national tax was scrapped, would you scrap the BC tax or would you take that question to voters?
00:16:08.340Actually, I wouldn't take that question to voters because, quite frankly, that's going to be a piece of the next upcoming election.
00:16:14.420If people want to remove the carbon tax in British Columbia, vote for the Conservative Party of BC, we will get rid of it.
00:16:21.000And so, obviously, with a federal government in place, if we get rid of it before there's a federal election, they could implement their own federal tax.
00:16:27.860And I wouldn't want to see that happen because getting rid of a federal tax is far harder than getting rid of a provincial tax.
00:16:32.940But, yes, we're committed to getting rid of the carbon tax.
00:16:52.620It's going to put $2.8 billion back in the pockets of British Columbians from last year.
00:16:56.840And the thing is, when you look at the cumulative, by 2030, 2031, the carbon tax and associated taxes will be the equivalent to taking $27,000 out of a family of forest pockets.
00:17:38.440Well, you know, since 1991, it's been 32 years, 16 years of NDP and 16 years of BC levels.
00:17:44.700And just about everything you can look at in British Columbia is worse off, including housing.
00:17:48.940Since 1991, housing has gone up by five or six-fold, while wages have doubled.
00:17:54.360So, wages have fallen way behind the ability for people to be able to pay for housing.
00:17:59.560So, there needs to be some dramatic shifts in terms of how we deal with housing.
00:18:04.020We haven't quarreled out our housing policy quite yet, but there's sort of three prongs that we're looking at on dealing with housing.
00:18:10.040The first is, we've got to figure out how we bring down the development charges by municipalities.
00:18:14.840Municipalities need to be able to put in new water and sewer and the services they need for housing.
00:18:19.900So, let's figure out how we support municipalities to be able to do that so that it makes it easier for them to be able to move forward with housing projects.
00:18:27.600The second thing we need to do is, of course, we need more supply.
00:18:31.280And there were solutions that were done back in the 60s and 70s, which drove a significant amount of rental units to be built.
00:18:38.440We should be looking at the same type of solutions, right, in terms of creating that environment so that investors can come in and actually build the units that we need.
00:18:46.880And the third piece, of course, is on affordability, people's ability to be able to buy the houses.
00:18:50.600And so, we're going to have some very interesting policies that are going to come forward to be able to help people to be able to afford their housing in British Columbia.
00:18:58.780Yeah, I hear that so many times that so many good projects die at city council.
00:19:05.060And, you know, every council across the country, especially in the major cities, is struggling with housing right now, but they're still raising taxes.
00:19:13.440So, in Victoria, there was a major project which was going to have, you know, commercial on the ground floor and housing in the other floors.
00:19:21.940And they proposed a five-story building.
00:19:24.780Well, the local residents complained, saying, no, no, that's too tall.
00:19:28.320And so, they cut it back and forced the developers to go to a four-story building.
00:19:32.300And the developer said, well, if we're going to do that, we can't afford to put in social housing, this affordable housing for people as part of it.
00:19:38.120And the council said, oh, that's okay, you can remove those.
00:19:44.080And the problem is because the building is going to be five stories instead of four.
00:19:47.740And then you've got projects in Vancouver, for example, that take five, six, seven years to actually get approved for redevelopment and done.
00:21:33.260Many students come into the country to get an education, but also as an opportunity to be able to get a job and maybe have an opportunity to immigrate into Canada.
00:21:44.760I mean, like I say, I'd like us to have that opportunity.
00:21:46.800But we actually have some facilities that are one-room colleges where students come in, register, and then they go directly into the workforce.
00:21:56.160And so that's not only abusing the student in terms of coming in, but it's abusing the process and opening up for immigration sort of through a back door without the kind of filter and process that should be done.
00:22:07.860And so I look at that and think we need to have better control of what's going on with that.
00:22:19.780But the BC NDP has gone one direction, and the Alberta UCP has gone an opposite direction.
00:22:27.080But they are tackling nearly identical issues, especially in rural areas with rotating hospital closures, ERs being shut down, shortage of family physicians pretty much everywhere.
00:22:36.600You can take the headlines, and you can cross out Alberta and write in BC.
00:22:42.120But the NDP in BC has decided to double down, spend more money, change nothing, and Alberta's gone a different direction.
00:22:49.940AHS has basically been split up into four different areas.
00:22:53.700They've picked four different areas of focus, and they're expanding access to family physicians by allowing nurse practitioners to treat in family general practice settings.
00:23:04.080And they've put an aggressive amount of money into healthcare and addictions.
00:23:08.780BC, on the other hand, has gone the safe supply and free crack pipe route.
00:23:44.360And I like many of the things that Alberta's doing around that.
00:23:47.020So we need to be looking at this different approach in terms of how we deal with addictions.
00:23:50.580But when it comes to healthcare, there was a court case that went through about a year ago, year and a half ago, where the government essentially was arguing that the system was more important than patient suffering.
00:24:03.620And the worst part is the judge agreed.
00:24:06.280Like, patient suffering and patient should be the focus of healthcare.
00:24:10.440So what we need to do is actually we need to look at our system and think, how do we improve this?
00:24:16.620And throwing more money is not the answer.
00:24:18.800There's only one other country in the world, as far as I know, that even comes close to following the healthcare system we have, and that's North Korea.
00:24:24.740And I'm sorry, that's not a model I want to follow.
00:24:27.160We need to be looking at what Europe's doing and what places like Australia are doing.
00:24:30.820We need to have a universal healthcare system that is delivered by both public and private sources.
00:24:35.700It's the only way that we're going to see the kind of improvements and actually create a better morale in our healthcare system so that we can attract professionals.
00:24:43.200So especially the Scandinavian countries, they have a very interesting mix of public-private delivery.
00:24:51.040And essentially, if the public system is unable to help you within a reasonable amount of time, your public dollars, you then take them to a private clinic and you can get the treatment.
00:25:00.640So Alberta and BC have this weird relationship where all the Albertans have to go to the Canby Clinic to get treatment, and all the BC folks, they got to come to Calgary to the different clinics to get surgery.
00:25:12.680So would you be working with Saskatchewan, Alberta, probably Manitoba at coming up with a plan that if somebody in BC needs a hip surgery and they can get it done in BC in a private clinic faster, those public dollars, are they going to follow that patient to that clinic?
00:25:30.320We're going to actually put together a proposal as part of our platform going into the 2024 election here that's going to be talking about how we can change and how we can create that kind of a model.
00:25:41.980Now, we may run afoul with the Canadian Health Act, and so that's something that we're going to have to deal with.
00:25:46.900And certainly, we're going to be looking at partners, people like Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, any of those provinces that have these same problems that would like to have this change.
00:25:57.660But the key in doing this is it has to be universal.
00:26:01.040So it has to be available regardless of where that source is.
00:26:04.320And we should be using whatever source is available to be able to reduce the wait times for patients.
00:26:10.060Last year, I think it was the last number I saw, about 17,000 people in Canada died waiting for diagnostic services and surgeries.
00:26:21.060At that rate, just on a population base, and we can't get the numbers in BC because they won't publish them,
00:26:25.600we're seeing about the same number of people die, if not even more, waiting for diagnostic services and surgeries as are dying from the opioid crisis.
00:27:27.580Fighting for the average everyday person and just being straight up with people.
00:27:30.840People from across the political spectrum are interested in what we're doing.
00:27:34.720And we saw a poll before Christmas that showed the Conservative Party in BC is actually there's 56% of the people in BC are considering voting for us.
00:27:42.780Which is a stretch because the last time the Conservative Party in British Columbia formed government was 1927.
00:27:49.140We're the oldest party in BC's history.
00:27:51.340The last time we even elected anybody was the 1970s.
00:27:53.820And so we're coming really completely out of the wilderness on taking the stage here in British Columbia.
00:27:59.420But we're putting forward a great team.
00:28:01.700We're going to have a very good strategy and lots of very interesting platform pieces to try to attract that vote in British Columbia.
00:28:08.320And I think, quite frankly, we have a path to be able to win government in 2024.
00:28:12.360It's going to be a very interesting year.
00:29:19.960A big thanks to John for joining us live this morning in studio.
00:29:23.800We wish him luck in his upcoming election.
00:29:26.560And with that upcoming election, I just wanted to touch on a couple of things.
00:29:30.460December 12th, Preston Manning wrote an opinion piece.
00:29:33.660And I just want to bring everybody's attention to something that he said in here.
00:29:37.060Far too many Calgarians completely ignored the last municipal election.
00:29:41.160That resulted in the election to the office of the current mayor.
00:29:44.400The 46% voter turnout in 2021 Calgary municipal election was even lower than the 58% turnout in 2017.
00:29:53.080With less than half the eligible voters participating in 2021 and the mayor receiving 45% of the vote,
00:29:59.600this means she occupies the office with the support of only 21% of the electorate.
00:30:04.520Now, we just talked about the BC election there and the platform of the BC Conservative leader.
00:30:10.860And I see a lot of people in the comments saying that, you know, things never change.
00:30:15.180And a lot of the reason why things never change is because people don't show up to vote.
00:30:20.120If you take a look at some of the polls, especially the federal polls in BC, a lot of people have changed their mind.
00:30:28.080They've changed and moved away from the Liberals and they're heavily supporting Pierre Polyev.
00:30:35.060And if you look at the polls, the BC Conservative Party is on an upwards trajectory.
00:30:39.480We haven't seen a BC Conservative Party have that much momentum in years and decades.
00:30:45.940I think this is a really good and exciting opportunity for the province.
00:30:49.840Even just to have a Conservative government as the official opposition in such a key area.
00:30:56.520You know, if people show up and vote and they vote what they want, you're going to get, you're going to see change.
00:31:03.840And even the NDP losing 10 or 15 seats in BC, you know, that's going to put them on notice that folks are done with the NDP's, you know, just lack of results.
00:31:16.860Like we talked about the Vancouver Lower Mainland real estate is some of the most expensive real estate on earth.
00:31:22.220When you look at health care, they have the exact same problems that Alberta and Saskatchewan are having with rotating ER closures and just a shortage of family physicians and rural hospitals being shut down.
00:31:33.360And I also see a lot of people saying that the interior, it's kind of like Canada.
00:31:39.860When the voting is done on the East Coast and once you've crossed Ontario, the rest of the voting doesn't matter.
00:31:45.100And a lot of people feel that way with BC that the Lower Mainland is going to decide who the government is and the interior, you know, they don't matter.
00:31:53.940Yes, but the more people that show up to vote, the more you can gather volunteers, the more effort you can put behind it, the greater momentum you can have.
00:32:03.800Look at what happened even with the liberal government dropping the carbon tax on home heating oil.
00:35:28.100But perhaps the bar should be a little bit lower.
00:35:33.700And then I'm just seeing here, it looks like friend of the show has said, can you imagine if James and Corey were on the show at the same time?
00:36:05.760Yesterday, a man wearing a security vest entered into Edmonton City Hall and started firing shots off and threw a Molotov cocktail.
00:36:16.720In the end, he seemed to put his weapon down and an unarmed commissioner, City Hall security guard, was able to take that man into custody.
00:36:26.220Obviously, the investigation is still ongoing.
00:36:28.760But, you know, that's really terrifying.
00:36:31.060And I think it's actually really sad for not just for Alberta, but for Canada.
00:36:36.060You know, it's been a very interesting last three to four years in this country.
00:36:42.420You know, we've had the trucker protests.
00:36:44.940We've had Canadian citizens treated like terrorists.
00:36:48.100We've had terrorists shout death threats at police and seen no arrests.
00:36:53.420And, you know, there is something that needs to be said is that if you don't show up and vote, the same people are going to continue to be elected.
00:37:04.320And they're going to continue to make these bad, poor decisions that are at odds with the electorate.
00:37:09.420But violence is just not going to solve anything.
00:37:14.220If anything, violence is going to make them buckle down and stick with really bad decisions.
00:37:20.400Not only that, but, you know, city halls are a place of public gathering.
00:37:23.980There has been protests outside the Calgary City Hall, in the Calgary City Hall.
00:37:55.780There's absolutely no excuse for what he's done.
00:37:58.900But, you know, this is, it's going to be sad.
00:38:02.380And now we're going to see these buildings have, you know, probably increased security.
00:38:06.440There's going to be more scrutiny on the public, which is unfortunate, because that's where the people need to go to be able to address their politicians.
00:38:17.220Oh, I just seen another comment here about PayPal.
00:38:19.980So this is actually one of the things that I can address.
00:38:22.500So to close up the show, I'll talk about some of the changes we've made here at the Western Standard.
00:38:26.420Back in October, we released a new website on a new platform.
00:38:30.760The system that we use, it's called Quintype.
00:38:37.920But the default payment provider on it is PayPal.
00:38:41.120So I just want to let all of you guys know that in the next week or so, we will be switching to a different payment handler.
00:38:47.920We've actually just had tons of issues with PayPal, with credit cards not working properly, with people just having issues with the system in general.
00:38:56.180So we're making some pretty big changes there.
00:38:58.800Another thing that popped up is our comment section.
00:39:02.040And I sent out an email to everybody, and I said, our comment section is moderated by AI.