00:00:30.000Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. I am, as the name would imply, Corey Morgan, and
00:00:35.720we've got a good show lined up for you this week. This is the Western Standards production where we
00:00:41.960cover some news items, interview interesting guests, interact with commenters and viewers,
00:00:48.060and get a lot of stuff off our chest. So I do want to remind people as well, you know,
00:00:53.220some of the folks are going to be watching the rebroadcast on television, and that's great,
00:00:57.300and I appreciate it. But yes, when you hear me referencing commenters, you won't see those
00:01:01.480comments, but I'll try and make it clear when I'm talking to them. And as for you guys commenting,
00:01:06.000you know, make use of it, chat with each other, send questions my way or towards my guest. I don't
00:01:09.920necessarily read them all on the air, but I do see them all guys and I appreciate it. And just
00:01:14.320try to keep things fairly civil with each other though. That's always the important part. We can
00:01:18.860get upset and mad, get on each other's cases, but we still don't have to get beyond the pale.
00:01:22.960So I got a great guest on today. It's not been too long since she was here last. It's Tamara
00:01:28.180Leach. She's going to be on in a little while. And the reason we've brought her back is because
00:01:32.000her book has just come out called Hold the Line. And it's already been quite the bestseller,
00:01:37.980I believe, on Amazon in some categories. And it's really making the rounds and it's fantastic. So
00:01:42.980we're going to talk to her about that and see what that's all about as well. I will be talking
00:01:47.540about news items and opinion and all that good stuff. So I'm going to start with, as usual,
00:01:52.500my opening monologue. Now, this was from a column about a week ago, so a lot of you Western Standard
00:01:57.320readers may have already read it, but this one really took off. I mean, I'm not here to pat
00:02:02.560myself on the back, just sometimes a column will really resonate with people, and this one seems
00:02:06.160to have, and I've never gotten so many emails back from readers on one column before. Mostly
00:02:13.400positive, a few telling me to get stuff, that's nothing new, but I mean, obviously, this is
00:02:17.060something people want to talk about, people want to read about, so I want to reiterate it for those
00:02:20.400who are viewers and make sure that you understand that, you know, this discussion and where we've
00:02:26.040been coming with things. So it's easy to critique proposed policies of mandatory drug treatment
00:02:31.780being imposed upon addicts from the comfort of a suburban home. When one hasn't seen this disorder
00:02:37.260and misery spreading on the streets of every major city in Canada, one can convince oneself that it
00:02:41.920really isn't that bad out there. A person can delude themselves and think that policies of
00:02:46.820enablement will eventually lead addicts to liberation from their poison of choice. They
00:02:51.720can call efforts to intervene in the state of addicts inhumane and refer to it as something
00:02:56.080like imprisoning Albertans against their will. In fact, that's the exact approach NDP leader
00:03:01.620Rachel Notley is taking on the issue. And those were her words. Exactly. Now, the UCP under
00:03:07.880Premier Daniel Smith dared to broach the issue of mandatory drug treatment. And as usual,
00:03:13.200the partisan subjects have gone wild. Now what privileged progressives like Notley refuse to
00:03:19.160understand is that addicts are already in prison against their will. They're trapped in a cycle of
00:03:24.960substance abuse which drives them to seek larger and more frequent doses to the point of an almost
00:03:29.720inevitable overdose. As they stumble down that path of addiction they lose their jobs, they lose
00:03:34.860their homes, they lose contact with their families. They live on the streets in fear, misery, and
00:03:40.080desperation as it gets harder to find the means to get their drugs and keep them in their stupor,
00:03:44.360which would allow them to forget their life situation. The fate of an addict once they've
00:03:48.180hit the streets is bleak. Unless they somehow find their way into a recovery program, they're
00:03:52.360likely going to end up either in jail, in a hospital, or dead. How on earth is it compassionate
00:03:57.640to say that we should leave addicts in that condition to their own devices? I mean, sure,
00:04:02.460it's always preferred, of course, to let free will dictate a person's path in life. That's working,
00:04:07.520though under the assumption a person is in their right mind. A heavily addicted person living on
00:04:12.580the streets is not in their right mind. Yes, it's best if an addict voluntarily checks themselves
00:04:18.080into treatment. Unfortunately, once they're down on the street level, very, very few will do that.
00:04:23.200For most of them, once they've hit that point, intervention is required. Last week, I wrote and
00:04:27.980I said on this show on how I had a family member we had to deal with, and he needed to be committed
00:04:33.620to a mental health facility. It was a tough process. The facilities are limited, and for now,
00:04:38.180he's still residing there. It's terrible to have to force a loved one into a situation where they're
00:04:42.680held against their own will. In the condition he's in, though, we know that he can't take care of
00:04:47.480himself, and he's beyond what we as family members can offer him with home care. We were forced to
00:04:52.680face the hard reality he needed to be committed for his own sake, and we do hope it's temporary.
00:04:58.280Now, society needs to make that decision when it comes to addicts. I can assure you, any family who
00:05:03.540has a loved one living on the streets in the throes of addiction will welcome a forced
00:05:08.000intervention with the intent of saving them. And I know success rates for addiction treatment
00:05:12.360aren't the greatest, particularly if the addicts didn't come of their own will to begin with.
00:05:16.700But still, the success rate's infinitely higher than having no treatment at all.
00:05:21.140A beating addiction is rarely a solitary journey. An addict needs support and guidance to stay
00:05:26.320clean. It's a long-term thing. It took me several false starts and countless support meetings before
00:05:30.920I finally managed to permanently end my addictive and destructive relationship with alcohol.
00:05:35.500I never would have been able to do it alone, and I can't imagine how somebody at the point
00:05:39.380of living in the streets can get started on recovery, much less complete the process on
00:05:43.140their own. Street addicts can't just up and quit cold turkey. To every person claiming
00:05:48.180it's inhumane to force drug rehabilitation upon addicts, I invite them to go out and
00:05:52.380see how it is for themselves then. Get out there. Spend a day riding city transit into
00:05:56.760the city cores. Walk the alleys into the parks. You'll find numerous addicts in a state of
00:06:01.480deterioration. Look at them curled up unconscious in bus shelters or behind dumpsters after they
00:06:06.920get their fix. Watch the ones shouting at the clouds as they shuffle down the street in a
00:06:11.080drug-induced psychosis. Look at the sores covering their faces and their emaciated bodies as the
00:06:17.020addiction is eating them alive. Spend a day doing that. I'm serious. Do it. Then come to me and tell
00:06:22.360me we shouldn't intervene. Tell me how that person on the park bench stoned out of their wits,
00:06:27.580soaking in their own feces, must be left alone for the sake of their dignity. There's no dignity in
00:06:33.020death, and that's the inevitable destination of many street addicts if something doesn't knock
00:06:37.880them off their path. Intervention and mandatory treatment isn't a perfect option, and it won't
00:06:42.980work for them all, but it's still a far better course of action than the failed policies of
00:06:48.040enablement and wishful thinking that's led to the spread of addiction and disorder we're seeing on
00:06:52.340the streets today. That's the rant I got this week, guys. And it's the truth. And this one
00:06:57.460just hits me hard. It drives me crazy. I honestly think a lot of the people who are saying intervention
00:07:03.540is wrong or that we can fix them or they call them, they sugarcoat it. They're not addicted.
00:07:07.300They're unhoused. Yes, they're unhoused. They're unhoused because they're addicted. We've got to
00:07:11.220get to the core thing if we're going to get them out of the trouble they're in. Most people living
00:07:15.480in the suburbs don't see it. They don't go into the alleys. They don't see quite how bad it's
00:07:20.880gotten, and how awful it is. And the emails really got to me, the number of people, it's one of the
00:07:25.920things nobody likes to talk about. And that's why I want to talk about it. Because we shuffle it off,
00:07:31.020you know, you don't talk about that in the water cooler, you don't talk about it in general. But a
00:07:35.020lot of us have loved ones either have mental health issues, or addiction issues. And you know
00:07:39.180what, we're not going to find solutions until we accept that. I mean, a lot of those emails I got
00:07:43.120were saying, thank you for bringing this up. I have a niece who's on the street, or I have an
00:07:47.720uncle who's on the street, or I have a cousin who died of an overdose. It's touching everybody
00:07:54.440everywhere, but still we're seeing these ridiculous push for enablement. This idea that if we could
00:07:59.520just keep giving enough safe consumption, they'll get better. They won't. And I'm not wholly against
00:08:04.840safe consumption sites and trying to mitigate harm. There's some truth to it. We can't treat
00:08:08.980them if they're dead. So if we can stop enough overdoses, hopefully we get them to the point
00:08:13.620where we can intervene and save them, but without treatment, it's pointless. All you're doing is
00:08:18.500dragging out a slow, ugly, and unnecessary death, and it's hurting us all, and the associated crime
00:08:24.640with it is just nuts. So that's what I got going on this week, guys, and yeah, we have to
00:08:31.760address these things. I'm just going to have a quick look through the comments. Good to see you
00:08:35.660all jumping in there, guys, and John Vancouver bringing up, you know, it's the results of
00:08:40.640deinstitutionalization, and I talked about that a bit before. We've moved away from putting people
00:08:46.440into institutions, and there was a good reason for it. The institutions were abused. There were
00:08:51.680terrible things that happened. There were bad conditions. They were underfunded, and I tell
00:08:54.660you what, the mental health facilities that my family members in, I'm going to be visiting them
00:08:59.120this afternoon there, aren't the greatest. They're doing what they can with what they have, but it's
00:09:02.340not a great place to reside, and they used to put, literally, in Michener Center and Pinocchio in
00:09:07.860Alberta, they had people with cerebral palsy back in there in the 60s and 70s. They had deaf people
00:09:13.180put in there. They were using those dumping grounds for undesirables. It was wrong, but instead of1.00
00:09:18.020fixing the problem, we threw out the solution, and we should have addressed that. We still need
00:09:23.680these institutions, and they should be a last resort, but it has to be there when that resort
00:09:27.680is needed. We've got a lot of addiction beds opening up, 8,000 of them in Alberta, as a matter
00:09:31.820of fact. But again, getting these people into them, that's another issue altogether. And we
00:09:38.080need to start talking about it. All right, let me pivot a little and let's talk about something else.
00:09:42.660So I mean, a big thing in the news, let's get into government waste and spending,
00:09:46.580one of always another favorite pet subject, depressing in its own right, but not as bad
00:09:50.240as dealing with addiction. The government's addicted with taking our money and giving it
00:09:54.120to their buddies. In this case, $13 billion to Volkswagen for a battery facility in Ontario,
00:10:00.500of course. I'm surprised it wasn't in Quebec. $13 billion. And it's going to be flushed, guys.
00:10:07.500It's going to be flushed. Volkswagen's going to take the money and run. Oh, they'll build something
00:10:11.100and eventually it'll fall apart. We'll be on the hook for that too. And there'll be layoffs.
00:10:15.240We've seen this. We've seen this so many times. And, you know, Alberta isn't innocent in it. I
00:10:20.280mean, for those of us gray enough of hair, we remember the MagCan and Novotel, these things
00:10:26.060in the 80s and early 90s. The government was subsidizing all these stupid business ventures.
00:10:31.680They were going to diversify Alberta's economy away from oil. Doesn't that sound familiar?
00:10:36.060Well, if you ever drive south of Calgary, there's a great big, when you get towards High River,
00:10:40.880so about half an hour south of Calgary, you see this giant red brick building just a little bit,
00:10:45.200a few miles off to the highway to the west. Strange. It's been there forever. That's the
00:10:49.080mag can plant. It was a magnesium processing facility. Somebody just smelled the idiocy of
00:10:55.020government willing to throw out subsidies on notions and economic diversity and modernization
00:11:00.820and said, we can process magnesium in this spot. All I need is half a billion tax dollars and we
00:11:06.180can do this. That facility was only open for a few months. And now it's sat there shuttered,
00:11:11.140closed. In fact, we're spending, I don't know, there's security guards and a trailer that's
00:11:15.240permanently there. So we're spending money just to keep it there. I notice there's lights on when
00:11:18.680you get close to it and go by, but there's nothing being done within it. It's too specialized.
00:11:22.780it's too unusual to be leased out for anything else. Eventually we'll spend the money to pay
00:11:28.220to rip it down. That, that building, that dinosaur, that's what we're going to see with the Volkswagen
00:11:35.280battery plant out in Eastern Canada. And also what it does is gives our prime minister who wants to
00:11:41.820shut down the energy industry in Western Canada, one of his things to point to. See, this is the
00:11:46.100transition, guys. This is the transition. You can leave the rigs and go work at the battery factory.
00:11:50.640See, we're not putting anybody out of work. We're transitioning them. No, you aren't. You're creating false industries. If there was a demand, if it was real, if it was possible, if it was feasible, they wouldn't need 13 billion of our dollars to do it. It's not that complicated.
00:12:05.640it. Likewise, I'll finish up getting on a local rant. We've got, yes, Premier Smith announcing
00:12:12.720yesterday with the mayor of Calgary and others that a new arena deal has been struck for Calgary.
00:12:19.400I mean, they need one. Sure, the Saddle Dome is, the roof is falling apart. It's out of date.
00:12:24.560But taxpayers are going to be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for this new
00:12:29.960arena. Let's not pretend it's because, you know, it's not because of election time coming. Of
00:12:33.900course it is. And it'll probably work. That's, you know, we've got to stop being so responsive
00:12:38.960to being bribed with our own money and maybe they'll stop doing it. But Daniel Smith desperately
00:12:44.300needs Calgary support numbers to jump for her. Calgarians have been very concerned that they're
00:12:48.320going to lose their hockey team and jumping in and pouring 300 million tax dollars into a private
00:12:55.040venture is what her solution to it has been. And it's just maddening. It's maddening. It's circling
00:13:00.620the drain, and it's these endless subsidy wars, and we get those people saying, oh, but look,
00:13:04.680this city over here subsidize theirs, and they'll steal our team if we don't do it.
00:13:08.500Oh, well. Come on, guys. There's other cities that have built arenas, stadiums, huge ones,
00:13:14.740without soaking the taxpayers for it. If there's a market for it, it'll be built, but if,
00:13:20.420and I don't even fault the sports company that owned the flames for taking it, if you can get
00:13:25.900the money out of them, they're going to push for it, and they know, of course, coming up to an
00:13:28.760election is a very good time to get their hands on it. But, you know, and I get frustrated with
00:13:34.700that myth that all these arenas, they bring all the money into the city. No, they don't.
00:13:39.500They redistribute money. Come on. I mean, Calgarians, are they going to say, oh, geez,
00:13:44.120the flames moved out, which I don't think they ever will. But either way, the flames moved out.
00:13:47.980I was going to spend money going down to the games, but now I'll just take the money and
00:13:51.160roll it up in a joint and smoke it. No, they're going to spend it on something else. They'll go
00:13:55.400to a restaurant. They'll go to a football game. They'll go to a movie. They'll take a vacation.
00:14:00.880The money doesn't disappear. The arena doesn't generate money. It takes money. It redistributes0.72
00:14:06.080money. Sure, there's people employed in the arena and in restaurants and bars in the area and
00:14:11.240parking, but let's not pretend that it's generating something. I mean, it benefits people. Sure,
00:14:16.580there's adds some value to the city and adds to some identity and things, but we can have those
00:14:22.260things without subsidizing them. That's the point. We don't need to get into the business
00:14:26.440of sports arenas, but it's too late. We're not getting out of that one, but we got to start
00:14:30.680speaking up because, you know, and again, I've been supportive of Premier Smith. I'm really
00:14:35.400fearful of an NDP government, but boy, how much conservatism is going to be left in her by the1.00
00:14:39.760time she gets there if she keeps going down this course? She was very opposed to arena subsidies
00:14:44.040only a few years ago. All right, that's enough out of me. Let's get some ranting and raving out
00:14:48.800somebody else we've got our guest on deck as i said we got tamara leach here to talk to us this1.00
00:14:54.400week as she's got her new book out hold the line and let's bring tamara in and talk about it hey
00:15:00.720how's it going out there it's going great corey how are you great rant this morning oh thanks you
00:15:06.160know well i've always got lots of rage and fury that i have to vent forth to everybody else or
00:15:11.600i'll be yelling on the sea trains and they'll think i'm another one of the addicts otherwise
00:15:14.320so so yeah i mean uh you know we pretty much everybody's familiar with your story but we'll
00:15:23.120go over a bit of it uh overall as well i mean we we the last time you were with us you mentioned
00:15:27.500there was a book coming and uh here it is it's out it's published it's it's been making a lot
00:15:32.160of waves uh tell us a little bit what's the basis of the book then is this a first person narration
00:15:38.120Is this giving the history of what happened?
00:15:54.580I think it captures the story really nicely and it's a nice, easy read.
00:16:00.320And I think it'll answer a lot of people's questions.
00:16:04.020I've been very quiet for the last year, as you know.
00:16:06.400So I think this will give people an opportunity to have some of their own questions answered also.
00:16:13.180Yeah, and you have been quiet and for good reason on a lot of it.
00:16:16.520You've had to be, I mean, you've had to be very careful because of your status.
00:16:19.500For those that already know, you're technically, you're still on bail.
00:16:22.840You know, there's conditions attached to that.
00:16:25.320If those are violated, they already showed that there's some people be more than overjoyed to stick you back and holding if they could find an excuse.
00:16:31.440uh there's clearly i'm guessing since you're still free and talking to me unless you're in a hidden
00:16:36.600location there's no problem then with publishing this book it's not going to violate any of your
00:16:41.140your bail conditions or anything like that no and and we actually sent the draft to my criminal
00:16:47.180lawyer for him to read and review and edit and uh actually i was a little surprised too i wasn't
00:16:53.140sure what he was going to think but he he sent his edits back and said best of luck well it's
00:16:59.160It's good to be careful. I mean, you've already done your share of time and remand. I'm sure
00:17:03.540you'd rather not have to repeat any of that if you can help it. So how far back does this book
00:17:09.900go into the story then? I mean, is this more background on you or does it kind of begin when
00:17:14.620the convoy begins or where does it start? It starts with basically a brief background
00:17:22.140about my history and how I ended up becoming involved. But the bulk of the book is all about
00:17:27.920uh the whole event all the convoy how i came to meet chris and bridget and uh you know all the
00:17:34.600wonderful people that i've been so blessed to work with over the last year and a half
00:17:38.640because we've become like family really most of us and um so it goes into a lot of the day-to-day
00:17:46.140things that were happening on the ground there in ottawa and all the things that we were dealing
00:17:49.900with i mean it was it was chaos it was a beautiful beautiful chaos well and i mean you've you well
00:17:57.100yourself have become a polarized, polarizing figure because you've become something of a
00:18:01.660figure recognizable to do with the convoy, which of course was a polarizing event in itself. And
00:18:05.960I mean, Mizzle addressed a little of the misinformation. You're not allowed on social
00:18:09.220media, but I am. And I get out there and stir everybody up. But of course, as soon as we
00:18:12.800announced you were coming on, we get the usual people jumping out. And I see the book gives you
00:18:16.420the opportunity to clarify a lot of things. And of course, one of the things that come,
00:18:19.740oh, here comes the grifter. She's looking to make more and more money out of this whole thing. And1.00
00:18:24.060And of course, the false allegation that you took money from any of the fundraising or things such as that with the convoy and such.
00:18:30.320I imagine you can clarify a lot of that within the book, right?
00:42:33.060Well, now I find out work has been halted on it yet again.
00:42:37.200Yes, there was an injury somewhere on the pipeline out there, I think, out by Chilliwack.
00:42:41.060So they shut the whole thing down because, again, you see, when you get a government-run project,
00:42:44.840and the oil field's been getting bad even in the private area for that.
00:42:47.100But the HSE guys, the safety maggots, they shut everything down over the dumbest of things.
00:42:52.380I mean, shut down a little zone, do a safety stand on fine.
00:42:54.680But when you're shutting down a pipeline worth that much, we're talking millions and millions of dollars is not making them any less injured or dead.
00:43:06.700And I mean, somebody referred to it as the hundred million dollar hummingbird nest, because that was found a couple of seasons ago on the side.
00:43:12.440And it wasn't an endangered hummingbird.
00:43:14.020It wasn't a rare hummingbird, but they found it in the environment.
00:43:17.280We've got to stop a big giant section of the construction of the pipeline
00:43:20.120because we don't want to disturb that hummingbird nest.