Western Standard - CMS： The scared cow of healthcare needs to be slain

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00:00:29.980 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. I am Corey Morgan. This is the Western Standards

00:00:34.860 weekly show, or at least my weekly show with the Western Standard, where I will

00:00:39.120 speak to interesting guests, cover interesting issues, rant and rave, get stuff off my chest,

00:00:45.480 and have exchanges with commenters. So thank you very much for joining us today, guys. We've got

00:00:50.780 a packed show, lots to cover and lots to talk about. I've got a guest coming on in a little

00:00:55.060 while. He's Professor Tom Flanagan. He's been strongly involved in conservative politics across

00:01:00.400 Canada, federally and provincially for quite some time. And he's going to weigh in and we'll talk

00:01:05.280 about conservatism and the election in Alberta. I mean, Alberta is the bastion of conservatism

00:01:11.440 in Canada, supposedly. Yet here we are on the brink of possibly another NDP government. What

00:01:16.480 the heck is going on? Is conservatism even saleable anymore? That is starting to get

00:01:22.540 questionable. We'll see. I'm sure it is, but Mr. Flanagan is certainly going to add more to it.

00:01:28.620 So I'm going to start off though with what's got me going today, and it's an issue, again,

00:01:32.620 it comes up from the provincial election in Alberta, but it affects everybody across this

00:01:37.480 country. And the story is the same across the entire country. Every province in Canada has

00:01:42.640 greatly increased health spending in the last five years, yet every province in Canada is facing an

00:01:47.760 overwhelmed, short-staffed healthcare system. People are dying while waiting for specialized

00:01:52.460 treatment or diagnostics. Family doctors are nearly impossible to find. Ambulances and emergency

00:01:57.440 services can't keep up with the demand, and hospital emergency rooms are constantly overwhelmed.

00:02:02.280 It doesn't matter which party's in power. We've got different parties in government all across

00:02:05.740 the country. The issues are the same. So if money isn't the answer, and the party in power isn't the

00:02:10.620 answer, then the problem obviously has to be with the system. Any politician questioning Canada's

00:02:16.320 sacred health care system, though, is committing a form of blasphemy. Unions, pundits, and academics

00:02:21.980 will pour from the woodworks and condemn the offender for daring to question the perfection

00:02:26.400 of the Canadian system if they do. Eager legacy media outlets, of course, will jump into the mix

00:02:31.220 and feed the fires with dire images of people suffering for lack of care in the United States,

00:02:36.140 and they'll interview somebody from south of the border who's going to offer a sob story on how

00:02:40.120 they lost their retirement and their home due to medical bills from an emergency hemorrhoid surgery

00:02:45.240 or something like that. The politicians who set things off will then duck his or her head,

00:02:50.940 you know, and head for cover and won't bring the subject up again, and nothing changes.

00:02:55.920 It has to stop. Canadians have to stop falling for the fear-mongering from the defenders of

00:03:00.200 the status quo. Liberal and NDP politicians have accused conservatives of wanting to dismantle the

00:03:05.940 universal healthcare system since it was created. Yet not once has a conservative government done

00:03:10.500 anything to threaten the universality of the system, well, many have had majority mandates

00:03:15.760 where they could have done so at any time. I remember, well, with Ralph Klein, they were always

00:03:19.180 saying he was going to privatize it all. It never happened. So if it's hollow fear-mongering from

00:03:23.940 the left, so why do they do it? Well, it's because it works every bloody time. Canadians have been

00:03:28.520 trained for decades to believe we have the best healthcare system on the planet, and the only 0.92

00:03:32.980 alternative system is the American one. That's an utter bunk. Canada's system is among one of the

00:03:38.360 worst of universal health systems in the world when it comes to bang for the buck. I mean,

00:03:42.440 there's great professionals within it, but the system's a mess. And there's dozens of other

00:03:46.320 systems in the world besides the American one. We need to have frank discussions on the system

00:03:50.780 and must look at models that are outperforming ours. There's many of them in Europe and Asia

00:03:55.300 that are providing universal care while spending less than we do and without having to ration

00:03:59.880 provision nearly as much as we do. So what's the catch though? Well, they allow more private

00:04:05.060 provision of care. Now remember, universal coverage, so I mean everybody gets covered,

00:04:10.160 nobody gets turned away, nobody has to pay out of pocket, but it's not a monopoly any longer.

00:04:15.720 Monopoly systems, they always screw the consumer, and in Canada we're living under a healthcare

00:04:19.660 provision monopoly. Lack of competition has stunted innovation, allowed a massive bloated

00:04:24.920 bureaucracy to grow, and has empowered unions to the point where internal reforms are nearly

00:04:29.180 impossible to achieve. The care is too centralized and hospital-centric, and they're bursting at the

00:04:34.860 seems. But if you try to take services out of a hospital setting, you're going to raise the ire

00:04:38.860 of the unions who rely quite well on those big union hospital environments. In Alberta, the NDP

00:04:43.880 are raising the specter of privatized health care in the election. They're running commercials

00:04:48.580 showing a person reaching into their wallet for a credit card while checking in in a clinic.

00:04:52.640 And this tactic is standard from the left, and it's unsurprising. What's infuriating, though,

00:04:56.800 is that it works. Mistrust is being fostered in Premier Smith, and many people are saying things

00:05:01.520 like, well, I don't like the NDP, but I can't let the UCP dismantle the healthcare system.

00:05:05.980 How long are we going to allow the healthcare system to deteriorate before realizing and

00:05:10.800 admitting it needs reform? How long will we let ourselves be fooled by the fear-mongering of

00:05:15.200 unions that care nothing for patient outcomes and only about maintaining the status quo?

00:05:19.660 Politicians need to find the courage to take on the system, and voters need to find the courage

00:05:23.840 to allow them to do it. Until that happens, though, the system is going to continue its

00:05:27.900 slide to the bottom, no matter how many tax dollars are pumped into it. Well, that's kind

00:05:32.520 of what's got me up and going today, guys. Well, lots of other stuff breaking and bursting in the

00:05:38.120 news. Let's get in on, check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor in the newsroom and see what

00:05:42.000 else is happening out there. Hey, Dave, how's it going? All right, Corey. You know what? We're

00:05:46.980 three days into it and I'm already sick of the election. How about you? It's getting tiresome

00:05:51.940 and repetitive already, but we'll push through. I mean, this is like the Super Bowl for us in a

00:05:56.380 lot of ways. It's just that it takes 28 days. Beautiful day and colorful day across.

00:06:19.740 Okay. I think maybe we're having some technical difficulties with Dave there. Perhaps we will

00:06:25.060 We'll check again with him in a second.

00:06:27.340 Sorry, Dave, we kind of lost you there.

00:06:29.340 You got me now?

00:06:30.740 Yeah, no problem, Corey.

00:06:31.840 I think it's my old computer about to give up the ghost.

00:06:35.900 Why don't I just jump right in before it dies again?

00:06:39.860 Well, lots of stuff on the website already this morning.

00:06:44.240 Corey, obviously a lot of it election-related.

00:06:46.880 We've got a piece by our education specialist, John Hilton O'Brien,

00:06:51.300 on what the fate of private schools will be under an NDP government.

00:06:57.580 Basically, it'll be the end of them because they've already said

00:07:00.300 they will help eliminate private schools in the province.

00:07:05.200 All COVID restrictions have been lifted in the United States.

00:07:09.760 You do not have to have validation of COVID vaccines anymore to get in there.

00:07:15.480 Interesting story coming out of Calgary Police this morning.

00:07:18.480 They've arrested a Edmonton man, 69 years old, for a series of three sexual assaults in Calgary in 1984, 39 years ago, in fact.

00:07:31.820 So an incredible development there.

00:07:33.680 you see and jean and rebecca schultz a press conference in calgary about an hour ago

00:07:40.400 saying the ndp's promise of putting alberta into a net emission zero plan for 2035 is going to cost

00:07:50.260 84 billion dollars according to two studies and that would make it the most expensive

00:07:56.080 of political campaign promise in Alberta history and our real estate expert Mike Thomas has a look

00:08:04.640 at the real estate markets in the two key areas of Vancouver and Toronto and the real estate there

00:08:13.780 is purring along just fine. Rachel Notley just wrapped up a press conference in Edmonton so

00:08:19.300 Arthur Green will be filing a story on that shortly and lots more good stuff to come

00:08:24.680 of this afternoon, Corey. Right on. Well, I can see you're, well, I know you're busy as hell in

00:08:30.360 there with this election going on and everything else. So I'll let you go back to it. Thanks for

00:08:34.040 taking the time to check in with us, Dave. Thanks, Corey. That is the Western Standard

00:08:38.900 News Editor, Dave Naylor. And as you can see, they're working so hard, it's wearing down our

00:08:43.520 internet access in the newsroom there. But be sure to check in on there, guys. The reason we

00:08:47.780 have so many stories, we have reporters across the country, whether it's covering the Alberta

00:08:50.720 election or all the rest of the issues going on out there is because of subscribers. So if you

00:08:54.820 haven't subscribed already, guys, get on there, westernstandard.news slash membership. That's how

00:09:00.080 we stay absolutely tax subsidy free. And that's how we stay accountable to you with our reporting,

00:09:06.240 not to anybody else. So those who have already subscribed, thank you. If you haven't subscribed

00:09:11.460 yet, come on guys, get on there. 10 bucks a month. Well worth it. All right. So let's see,

00:09:16.860 getting onto the federal scene. Let's get back because I like to keep reminding people of this

00:09:21.200 because this keeps bubbling and going and bubbling and going, yet we don't seem to be getting any

00:09:26.640 resolution. And that's the Chinese interference in Canadian politics, the latest revelation.

00:09:32.300 You know, I mean, we keep seeing people on social media saying drip, drip, drip, because

00:09:35.260 you see that steady dripping of somebody is leaking from CSIS, these reports, all of this

00:09:41.080 stuff where they've been raising alarm flags for years and years about how the Chinese Communist

00:09:46.220 party has been influencing Canadian politics. This latest one is quite a bombshell. Yet,

00:09:51.860 of course, Trudeau dismissed it. That's not to be surprising. So Conservative Member of Parliament

00:09:55.720 Michael Chong apparently sees this had been tracking that the Chinese government had been

00:10:02.120 making potential threats to his family who reside back in Hong Kong still, because Chong had been

00:10:08.600 very critical of the Chinese government over here. Like, think of how huge, how scary, how brutal

00:10:16.340 this is. A foreign nation intimidating our elected officials because they don't like the policy 0.99

00:10:22.480 statements they took here. And it's not impossible again to think of China wanting to do that. Of 0.86

00:10:27.000 course, that's the sort of thing China does. They aren't a nice country or a nice country that the 1.00

00:10:31.860 government is terrible. They're communists. So yeah, the Trudeau government was warned of this 0.94

00:10:37.020 years ago. And what did they do about it? Nothing, nothing. They didn't think it was important

00:10:43.360 enough, I guess, to deal with. And that's essentially what Trudeau said. He said that

00:10:47.940 he felt that CSIS just didn't feel this was a big enough issue to have to deal with. Meanwhile,

00:10:52.560 Chong didn't even know about this going on. Now, there was a diplomat, Mr. Wei Zhao, who was

00:10:58.120 involved in this. He was part of the one with the communications. He's the one that the CSIS had

00:11:03.580 been tracking and watching this diplomat from the Chinese Communist Party in Canada. Well, guess

00:11:08.420 what? He's still approved by the Canadian government to work in Canada. He's still an

00:11:12.760 active diplomat here. He's been working on interfering with our elected officials,

00:11:18.560 threatening their families back in China. That's how that government works. It's not just that they 1.00

00:11:23.240 can't control the people here. They control them through threatening their families. Many of them,

00:11:31.460 if there's new Canadians or Canadians with Chinese family, they can threaten them from 1.00

00:11:35.260 where they're back home. You know, threatening phone calls, things like that. That's been 1.00

00:11:38.140 documented as well. Yet nothing's getting done about it. Trudeau keeps kicking the can down the

00:11:42.320 road, appointing his friendly uncle-like figures to be special rapporteurs. The Trudeau Foundation,

00:11:48.440 more stuff is leaking about how they were taking Chinese money in. This corruption mess is getting

00:11:54.040 worse and worse and worse, and nothing's getting done. Jagmeet Singh, of course,

00:11:57.720 he holds the power to change it. Won't do a thing. One of the most cowardly leaders in Canadian

00:12:02.380 history, that man. And I just, you got to wonder what the heck is it going to take? Meanwhile, 0.99

00:12:08.940 so, I mean, it got heated in the House of Commons. Pierre Polyev brought it up, wanted to speak about

00:12:13.580 it, wanted an emergency debate. And he got threatened from the House Speaker, threatened

00:12:21.440 to eject him from the House for persisting on it, because he shut down the debate, the Speaker,

00:12:26.620 the speaker who's supposed to be impartial, but I mean, the speaker is a liberal member of

00:12:31.120 parliament. Thus, they won't discuss it any further. I just got to wonder how many more

00:12:37.120 leaks is it going to take? How bad is it going to have to get? It sounds like they've interfered

00:12:40.600 with multiple elections of ours now. And then they've got that other story, you know, down in

00:12:46.200 the States, there's Chinese police stations that were set up. We had them in Canada too.

00:12:50.920 And Canada's prime minister of lies. And you know, every show I talk about Marco Mendicino and his

00:12:55.980 lies because he lies about everything. The guy, I swear, he's pathological. He lied and said there 0.95

00:13:00.780 were none of those police stations operating in Canada. Well, it turns out, yes, they are. Yes,

00:13:05.960 they are. And, you know, these were, they call them police stations, basically their little

00:13:11.400 toeholds of the Chinese Communist Party within our country that are here expressly for the purpose of

00:13:17.620 influencing Canadian policy. Should we not be concerned about this? I mean, yes, but this issue 0.88

00:13:23.520 just seems to be dragging out to this strategy on the part of the prime minister to just keep

00:13:28.780 kicking down the can down the road is working. And I don't know what it's going to take to hold

00:13:33.500 them to account. I really don't. You can see why people give up on politics sometimes. I mean,

00:13:37.640 it just feels futile sometimes. I don't know. We'll see what the release for next week is going

00:13:44.420 to be when that one comes up. I mean, speaking of just some other fun idiocy in the world of 0.95

00:13:51.020 the woke and many other things. Bud Light, yes, they still make the news now. And then 0.98

00:13:55.600 their sales dropped 21% in the past few weeks, 21% after their collaboration with a transgender

00:14:04.460 activist, Dylan Mulvaney. And again, I don't care. The company wants to, you know, go with 0.94

00:14:10.580 social media influencers and different types. Good for them. That's your business. It's your

00:14:14.260 company. But I'm just astounded when it comes to this, because like, no, your market guys,

00:14:18.840 these are guys at rodeos. These are guys, you know, in country bars. That's your main market.

00:14:25.440 If you wanted to change your market and ease into it, fine, do so. But do it carefully. Don't jump

00:14:31.300 right in with this. Boy, are you ever taking a spank over this pointlessly and without need.

00:14:37.400 I don't know, but it all comes down to that ESG trend and almost fanaticism on the part of

00:14:42.840 corporations. I guess recently Coca-Cola had their own shareholders stand up and tell them to cut it

00:14:47.380 out because they were getting pushed to take a stance and boycotting states that aren't providing

00:14:51.820 ready enough services for abortion. Let the corporations be corporations. It doesn't matter 0.98

00:14:56.900 what side of the issue you're on. Quit this ESG garbage. Their role is to make money for their 0.99

00:15:01.400 shareholders. They shouldn't apologize for that. And they got to quit dipping their toes into the

00:15:05.580 water of social justice activism because as the saying goes, go woke, go broke. So yes, a 21%

00:15:11.480 sales drop in one of the largest beer brands on the planet. That's nothing to sneeze at and it's

00:15:17.280 going to take them a lot of work to get that market back. All right, let's get into some

00:15:21.300 more domestic politics and talk to our guest, Professor Tom Flanagan, and talk conservatism,

00:15:26.900 politics, elections, and all that good stuff. We'll bring him in and see how it's going.

00:15:33.300 Hello, how are you doing? Hi, Corey. I appreciate you coming on to talk to us today. You know,

00:15:39.200 we got this election going. It's going to be clearly already a heated and an ugly one in a

00:15:44.880 lot of ways uh but what i kind of want to start with is you know it's so close it's neck and neck

00:15:52.000 well there's no conservative split for the parties right now there's uh not even it's not even a

00:15:57.600 liberal uh party on the other side that you can say is ostensibly centrist it's ndp like albert

00:16:04.320 is supposed to be the bastion of conservatism what happened well the main thing that's happened

00:16:09.960 over the long term is the collapse of the liberals and the migration of their support

00:16:15.460 to the NDP. The perception of Alberta as an overwhelmingly conservative province was always

00:16:23.480 a bit misleading. It was based on the vote splitting on the left. If you went back and

00:16:30.600 looked at the voting results for all the years that the conservatives were in power,

00:16:35.000 it was only a couple of times that they got more than 50 percent of the vote uh usually their their

00:16:41.600 vote was strong uh but not actually a majority there was always a lot of voters that were looking

00:16:47.720 for an alternative to the conservatives well now they have one and so our politics now looks pretty

00:16:52.900 much like that of the other western provinces in which you have on one side a conservative party

00:16:58.980 with you know in each province it's a different name and a different different history and then

00:17:04.440 on the left, you have the NDP. And so we're very, our politics now is very much like that

00:17:11.100 of British Columbia or Saskatchewan or Manitoba. And so, as I say, the perception that Alberta

00:17:18.260 was different was a bit misleading. It was based on the, on the split between the liberals

00:17:24.100 and the NDP, which has disappeared. Okay. So what can be done about it? I mean,

00:17:30.620 We see the UCP, for example, though, is definitely trying to recapture, I guess, some of that center-right or softer conservative vote.

00:17:38.540 I mean, it's a very high-spending campaign they're going on so far, and they're certainly backing away quite often or trying to avoid what would be considered old meat and potatoes conservative issues.

00:17:48.620 Do you think they're going to be able to pull that vote back to them by the time Election Day comes?

00:17:54.480 Well, they have to try.

00:17:56.840 I mean, here's a situation for the UCP.

00:17:59.660 Four years ago under Jason Kenney, they did win an overwhelming victory and they did get more than a majority of popular votes.

00:18:06.960 But then they had the internal splits within the party.

00:18:09.880 Jason resigned and new leader Danielle Smith, who's got into power mainly on the strength of the, you might call them the further right elements of the party, sort of a populist rural version of conservatism.

00:18:26.580 These were her her main supporters. So now to to hope to win the election, they have to soften that image and perceive more to what in political science we call the median voter people who are kind of in the center of the distribution.

00:18:44.120 There simply is not enough support for the populist right, even in Alberta, to win the election.

00:18:53.340 They could win control of the UCP, but to win a general election, they're going to have to appeal more to the median voters.

00:19:03.260 So that's what Danielle has been attempting to do. 0.97

00:19:06.140 She has downplayed some of the edgier positions that she took, like her Sovereignty Act was watered down, and she's opening up the purse strings, funding a new arena in Calgary, promises for improvement of the health care system. 0.98

00:19:24.820 All this stuff costs money, and it's designed to appeal to the median voter who could be swayed to vote in either direction.

00:19:33.140 And they're not firm supporters of the UCP, so they have to have inducements. 0.99

00:19:38.160 So that's the strategy behind what she's doing.

00:19:40.980 And it's a tried and true strategy of campaigning in Canada, as in other countries.

00:19:46.540 And what she's doing is pretty standard.

00:19:52.120 Yeah.

00:19:52.320 So, I mean, I guess some of the element of fear of the unknown with the NDP is gone as well.

00:19:57.800 I mean, Alberta had never had an NDP government.

00:19:59.820 It was always assumed it would be far, far left if they ever got their hands on things.

00:20:03.740 And, you know, they certainly were a left-wing party when they were governing for four years,

00:20:08.400 but they weren't as extreme as some might have feared they'd be.

00:20:11.900 So it's not, people won't feel it's the end of the world if they got in again.

00:20:15.320 So that's where they become, I guess, more into consideration for a common voter than they used to be 10 years ago when they were kind of a mystery.

00:20:22.000 Yeah, well, you know, elections are largely determined by fear and loathing, as great journalists put it.

00:20:31.080 I think the UCP should actually be doing more to stoke that.

00:20:38.140 I think their best line of attack against Rachel Notley would be, and they are doing this to some extent, and I think they probably need to do more of it, to highlight her association with Justin Trudeau.

00:20:50.920 And you could even throw in the leader of the federal NDP for, you know, for keeps, for a bonus, you know, put a picture of the three of them together and maybe have to manufacture the picture and say, are these the people you want running Alberta?

00:21:08.440 Because Trudeau is very unpopular here and the federal Tories have no trouble sweeping the province.

00:21:15.780 So, you know, I would say you want to associate Rachel Notley in the popular mind with Justin Trudeau and point to episodes in the past where the two of them were on the same page.

00:21:30.240 For their part, what the NDP is doing, I think this is a very effective attack ad.

00:21:35.760 I've seen it now on big posters.

00:21:38.400 It's actually quite unusual in Alberta to have a big street poster with an attack ad on it.

00:21:43.960 It's a picture of Danielle, and it just says, what will she do next?

00:21:48.500 And that plays to her history of a very colorful political history of having been in different situations at different times.

00:21:56.960 Calgary School Board, Wild Rose Party, attempt to merge.

00:22:02.300 And then as a media commentator, yeah, what will she do next?

00:22:05.280 As a media commentator, of course, she said all kinds of controversial things.

00:22:10.240 You'd understand that, Corey.

00:22:11.460 You're a media commentator.

00:22:12.520 You're trying to you're trying to provoke debate, but you're not running for office.

00:22:16.440 Well, it's hard to move from what she has done as a media commentator to running for office, because now you have all this stuff that you said and it's all online.

00:22:26.480 So anyway, the NDP is is their fear and loathing is with this line of attack.

00:22:33.040 So that's part of the election. Negative advertising is an essential part of campaigns.

00:22:39.960 some people say they don't like it but it's an essential way of bringing out facts

00:22:44.180 well yeah i mean people people complain about it but there's i mean if any area of marketing has

00:22:51.040 been more studied and checked and tested before its political campaigns the reason it's done is

00:22:56.000 because it works and and whether you like it or not you can't pretend to play a high road and stay

00:23:00.960 out of it or you'll get the floor mopped with you from the other team it's it's an unfortunate

00:23:04.560 trend but it's a reality in politics today yeah i you know i've managed campaigns for different

00:23:11.000 leaders and uh different leaders when they were new in the job and without exception leaders when

00:23:17.520 they're new say well no i'm going to take the high road no negative advertising uh well they

00:23:22.840 paid a price for it um i remember in 2004 the conservatives got creamed by the liberals with

00:23:30.120 a barrage of negative ads well in 2006 we were ready for him and we had our own barrage of

00:23:35.320 negative ads you have to balance the balance the ledger so i think danielle has learned that less

00:23:41.480 should have learned that lesson and from the past um so we'll see if she's if she's ready to respond

00:23:48.440 in kind to what the ndp are are attempting to do to her uh so that's a big feat it's an interesting

00:23:55.720 campaign both both women uh which is how nobody even comments on that anymore it's become so

00:24:01.800 accepted that women have leading roles in politics um but i think they're going to have to use these 0.99

00:24:09.880 and they are already starting to use these older techniques of campaigning well and you know you 1.00

00:24:16.200 mentioned that it's both women and one of the things that sort of went really poorly for for

00:24:20.120 uh premier prentice during the his election when he lost to the ndp was during the debates and it

00:24:25.720 it really was an impression of bullying you know it was the taller man standing up talking down to

00:24:31.080 to a more you know a shorter woman and that imagery really soured a lot of people uh premier

00:24:37.800 smith isn't going to be accused of misogyny or bullying if she jumps into the the mix on the

00:24:44.280 the more negative front uh like a male leader would in a sense it's yeah that's a good point

00:24:48.360 corey yeah she she doesn't have to worry about that uh so i say let you know let them go at it

00:24:54.520 I think it's important.

00:24:57.300 It is very close.

00:24:59.360 The biggest advantage that the UCP has is the fact that they get more bang for the buck

00:25:05.640 for their votes in that the rural ridings in Alberta have smaller populations.

00:25:12.180 So, or in other words, they elect a few more members than they would if the constituency

00:25:18.340 boundaries were strictly proportional.

00:25:20.360 So that's the advantage that the UCP has. Whether it's enough to carry them over the finish line, I don't know. They will probably lose. They'll be lucky to elect two or three or four members in Edmonton. They'll sweep the countryside except for urban pockets like Lethbridge.

00:25:38.520 um calgary is uh you know contested and both parties will win seats in calgary i think but

00:25:46.440 uh just a case of do you get quite enough to get you over that 50 plus one number of seats

00:25:53.840 uh every seat counts you know i mean so this battle has to be waged everywhere even if the

00:25:59.460 ucp isn't strong in edmonton the two or three seats they they could win there might be the

00:26:04.840 margin of victory uh so both parties have to contest everywhere well absolutely and i mean

00:26:10.640 you get the donut around edmonton which are there's actually some strong ucp support there

00:26:15.240 but it's swing and if you neglect edmonton too much i imagine that could hang over and you could

00:26:19.620 lose some of those marginal seats absolutely yeah even if interior edmonton looks like a lost cause

00:26:24.700 so i mean a lot of it's laying on trust and they're really bringing that to a head with

00:26:30.920 Premier Smith, the NDP, against her and saying you can't trust her. You don't know what she's

00:26:35.180 going to do. I mean, Daniel Smith has always been prone to impulsiveness. She is more of an

00:26:39.240 idealist than a pragmatist, I think, when it comes to a lot of things. I think she's learning

00:26:45.240 about that quickly now. But as you said on my show, if I were to run, and I know better,

00:26:50.600 that's not going to happen. Of course, the opponents are going to dig out all sorts of

00:26:54.740 quotes and things, and they'll pull them out and let them out slowly all the way through the

00:26:57.980 campaign we know that's going to happen it continue to happen with premier smith is there

00:27:01.820 any way though she can head that off or is she going to keep suffering this death of a thousand

00:27:05.760 cuts every day uh the best defense is a strong offense uh if you're playing defense you've

00:27:12.260 already lost so that's why i say that the the ucp has to should have its own strong negative campaign

00:27:18.880 against rachel notley uh don't bother trying to explain away things that danielle may have said

00:27:26.320 in the past. I mean, she's already dealt with that, for example, on health care. She said there

00:27:32.080 won't be any fee-for-service health care. There's other ways you can point things that she has done.

00:27:40.260 That's enough. Now you go on the attack and, you know, make it all about Rachel Notley's ties to

00:27:47.440 the federal politicians who want to destroy Alberta's economy. That's the best defense.

00:27:53.460 So one other thing before I finish up with you is something kind of different around this time.

00:27:58.180 I mean, there's always been some hot spots, but the rift between kind of both parties and the media in this election and trying to control their messaging going out.

00:28:05.740 In the case of Rachel Notley, there's just certain outlets, including ours, that she just won't even talk to whatsoever.

00:28:10.660 They won't even send us press releases.

00:28:11.940 uh and uh premier smith is won't take follow-up questions at conferences and is trying at least 1.00

00:28:18.120 to reduce the the amount of messaging going out when she goes into those uh i mean normally 0.99

00:28:23.540 politicians are beating your door down at election time to try and talk to the media as much as

00:28:27.480 possible right now they seem to be kind of almost trying to avoid it yeah this is again unfortunate

00:28:32.500 but i guess an inevitable trend of the polarization of media uh you know at one time there were fewer

00:28:39.000 media outlets and they had some pretense of objectivity and neutrality in politics today

00:28:46.360 that pretense is largely gone and all the media are identified with one side or another and

00:28:52.760 politicians inevitably then uh take side this is not a new development uh for example when i was

00:28:59.480 working for stephen harper uh he made strong attempts to to speak to local community newspapers

00:29:07.160 uh in preference for wasting his time with the toronto star for example uh joe biden you know

00:29:14.600 he's very selective and in the questions that he will take um it's it's just a fact of life

00:29:23.560 so uh we have to get used to that and uh you know i know it'd be frustrating for

00:29:29.960 and I'll do like Western Standard if the NDP won't talk to you.

00:29:35.700 So go and talk to the other side and let them speak.

00:29:38.760 Well, and that's what happens.

00:29:40.120 And I mean, certainly we're in an unapologetically conservative editorial slant here,

00:29:44.480 but, you know, you're only making us crabbier,

00:29:46.700 and we're not going to get any nicer for your having shut us out.

00:29:49.960 But that's the reason.

00:29:51.280 No, it is unfortunate.

00:29:52.400 You know, it's kind of unhealthy, but that seems to be the way it is,

00:29:56.780 and it's not just here in Alberta.

00:29:58.060 It's the way it is everywhere.

00:29:59.820 So I guess we just have to live with it.

00:30:02.480 So, you know, we used to think there'd be a neutral media that would let both sides speak.

00:30:06.680 Well, both sides are still speaking, but now they're speaking through their own outlets.

00:30:12.460 NDP has press progress and other house organs that they can speak through.

00:30:17.560 Western Standard is a conservative voice.

00:30:21.680 You know, I guess it's not the ideal, but that's the way it is.

00:30:25.340 Yeah. Well, I guess I hope that some outlets on each side managed to hit the middle of somewhere and inform the voters. That's all we can hope for. All right. Well, that went fast, but there was just a lot to cover. I really appreciate you coming on to talk to us today, Professor Flanagan. It's going to be an interesting few weeks to see how this develops. I mean, it's close races in Alberta are actually something that have only come about in the last 10 years or so.

00:30:47.480 Well, because of the – I have to go back to the big structural factor that is determining everything else is the collapse of the provincial liberals, migration of their support to the NDP, the emergence of a two-party system in Alberta, a true two-party system in which you have two large parties contesting for government.

00:31:08.140 These are all relatively new developments in our history.

00:31:11.680 We never had them from 1905 up until, as you say, the last 10 years.

00:31:15.520 So a lot of our sort of conventional wisdom about politics is outdated. It goes back to an earlier era. But now we have a different configuration, which seems likely to last into the future.

00:31:31.540 i don't see any sign of small parties uh reviving liberal provincial liberals are dead the alberta

00:31:37.460 party seems to be dead the greens never got anywhere in alberta the further right parties

00:31:43.380 have been wiped out by the the further right takeover of the ucp then that took the wind

00:31:49.620 out of the sails of the provincial wild rose party so all these small parties are are non-entities

00:31:55.540 now so it's just a big two going at it and it's different for people with memories that's quite

00:32:01.220 different uh than alberta politics used to be but i think it's going to be the the way it will be for

00:32:06.260 the future yeah well we'll watch them punch it out for the next few weeks and see what happens

00:32:11.700 so thank you again i hope we can check in with you again perhaps before the end of the election

00:32:16.020 or right after it okay vote early vote often bye-bye thank you bye again that was yes professor

00:32:23.460 tom flanagan who has been very involved in politics in canada for quite some time and

00:32:27.460 pointing out some very good points. And that change, you know, that true evolution into a

00:32:35.320 two-party system, I think it's a bit, it goes in cycles to a degree though, right? Like when we

00:32:41.280 look at Saskatchewan, a news story that came up recently, the Sask United Party. I mean,

00:32:47.740 Saskatchewan kind of went to a point where they had a few things going on. They used to have

00:32:51.060 progressive conservatives and Grant Devine sort of blew that up. If you remember that old term for

00:32:56.520 what, to err is human, but to truly F up is divine. And he really did do it. He basically

00:33:01.480 annihilated the progressive conservatives in Saskatchewan. It led to a long period of time

00:33:05.980 with the NDP in power of Romano. And they sort of, they had a liberal party on the scene as well

00:33:13.600 and things. And the liberal party in Saskatchewan sort of seems to have gone to the wayside. And

00:33:17.780 it turned into a bit of a two-party system. But now you've got this United Party coming from the

00:33:22.660 right. And is this going to be a repeat of Alberta though? Is there going to be a risk of Saskatchewan

00:33:27.980 putting a NDP government back in power because the right splitting? And I, you know, when you think

00:33:33.720 of it in Alberta, yeah, we had the NDP and the Liberals splitting things on the left. Now look

00:33:38.440 at the federal scene. That gets a little more concerning altogether because we still do have

00:33:42.620 a number of parties up there. But as far as the House goes, they're only splitting things on the

00:33:47.460 left. You've got the NDP and the Liberals. And yes, they've formed an agreement, you know, not a

00:33:51.360 formal coalition, but something of a coalition, and they're maintaining power based on that.

00:33:56.440 But how do you break that? I mean, that means if the NDP and the liberals are one of the two

00:34:01.640 collapses, or if the two ever formally merged, they would become even more powerful and intractable.

00:34:06.960 Like in a two-party system, if it really was just conservative, just liberal in Ottawa,

00:34:13.160 I think we'd have liberal governments forever. Perish the thought. As part of why I do think,

00:34:19.240 I look along the lines of sovereignty and independence and provincial autonomy so we can adapt to those regional differences because changing things within the current system is going to be exceedingly difficult.

00:34:33.000 We'll see what happens.

00:34:34.480 And this is some of the things, I mean, with Canada's regional imbalance, let's talk politics, let's stick with it.

00:34:40.980 So there's a language bill the government just changed.

00:34:43.100 This is concerning.

00:34:43.780 These are the other things we're not hearing about.

00:34:45.760 Nothing's changing.

00:34:46.600 This is one of the areas where Pierre Polyev tends to be silent, again, because you have to

00:34:52.300 cater to the central Canadian voter. So this bill is going to give equality of status and use of

00:34:59.120 English and French in Canadian society on this laudable goal, of course. But what this will do

00:35:06.140 is expand bilingual requirements into the private sector. Now, this is federally regulated industries

00:35:13.180 in the private sector, but that's a lot of them, interprovincial trucking. A lot of it's in

00:35:18.480 transport, you know, airlines, things such as that. These are private companies, but because

00:35:25.180 they come under strong federal regulations, suddenly they're going to say, you need to have

00:35:29.480 a degree of bilingual ability and provision, even if you have no need for it. See, that's the thing.

00:35:36.440 There's no need. Let's quit pretending Canada is bilingual. We are not. We've never been. 1.00

00:35:43.180 Quebec is pretty bilingual, parts of New Brunswick are pretty bilingual when we're talking

00:35:47.600 French-English. Aside from that, the country's English, guys. We got a lot of areas with a lot

00:35:53.280 of people speaking English as a second language, but usually the first language isn't French. And

00:35:58.160 I mean, Alberta, I don't know where French lands as far as first languages go. And I mean, in

00:36:03.280 northern Alberta, there's some areas, you know, with a strong French population, and every province

00:36:07.880 has some of that going on, but Hindi is more spoken than French. Cantonese is more spoken

00:36:13.240 than French. Yet here we have this government that's going to force a degree of bilingual

00:36:21.300 requirements into the private sector. Think of the advantage economically that gives to Quebec,

00:36:27.380 that as if they haven't already had enough legislated advantage in Canada, as if they

00:36:33.340 hadn't already dominated the senior positions in the public sector, now we're going to be forced

00:36:39.480 to have a degree of them in the private sector. And people say, well, English people could just

00:36:44.680 learn French. Yeah, they could. But, you know, realistically, again, getting around to who's

00:36:48.200 really bilingual or not, go to Quebec. Most of the population of Quebec can speak a degree of

00:36:53.840 English, even though they'll often pretend not to. Go anywhere outside of there in parts of New

00:36:58.280 Brunswick and people don't speak French. So yes, there's a distinct advantage being given over to

00:37:03.900 them yet again. Our system is so imbalanced and in nuanced ways. See, these are ways that people

00:37:09.140 don't think about with that, but it gives them a heck of an advantage. Getting back to, this is

00:37:16.640 something else too. The CRTC, yeah, they said they're going to define newsroom ethics. This is

00:37:22.760 concerning under a cabinet bill on internet revenue sharing. This is a executive director

00:37:28.400 of broadcast policies. So he's met with newspapers and puts the onus on them to define newsroom

00:37:36.860 ethics. I don't trust this government to define newsroom ethics. Governments need to stay the

00:37:42.140 heck out of newsrooms, period. Particularly the bloody CBC. Speaking of the CBC, the state 0.99

00:37:49.760 broadcaster. They hate it when I use that term for it. But I mean, as they become so increasingly a

00:37:54.380 true liberal trumpet, you can't deny they're a state broadcaster. They do what they're told.

00:38:00.900 Come on. I mean, again, Rosie Barton, I mean, you can almost see her quiver a little when she

00:38:07.180 mentions Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's name. And that's the head of the political news desk up

00:38:12.440 there in Toronto for the CBC. And speaking of that, getting back to our Minister of Lies,

00:38:18.880 Mendicino. He talked about that. And he said the CBC is a pillar of democracy. That's interesting.

00:38:25.800 Mendicino, again, the minister who specializes in baloney, the minister who is the king of BS and

00:38:32.140 lies, has said the CBC is a pillar of democracy. How is it a pillar of democracy? When every

00:38:37.780 Canadian is forced to kick money into it. Forced. You have no choice. See, I don't care. I don't

00:38:42.800 care if there's a million outlets in Canada, individual ones, and I don't care how far one

00:38:48.080 way left or right, they might have a leaning. It doesn't matter to me. Just don't make me pay for

00:38:52.980 it. I'll choose whether or not I want to view it. But with the CBC, I've got no choice. I have to

00:38:57.680 pay for that. Every Canadian has to pay for it, whether you'll watch it or you don't watch it.

00:39:01.660 And come on, they have, they barely made anything decent since the kids in the hall and the 1.00

00:39:04.540 beachcombers. But he says they're a pillar of democracy. How is it democracy when you don't

00:39:09.320 have a choice? That's liberal logic. And that's the sort of thing again with Mendocino,

00:39:13.720 who again is incapable of telling the truth with anything. So let's talk about

00:39:18.080 newsroom ethics, because the CBC, this pillar of democracy, in the last year had to publish 36

00:39:27.520 corrections. 36 corrections. 36 times they put out articles that were wrong or untrue, and they had

00:39:36.760 to go back and correct their own record. 1.4 billion tax dollars a year, plus hundreds of

00:39:44.720 millions of dollars stolen from the private market with advertising revenue, and they still can't

00:39:50.560 check their own news items well enough to avoid having 36 corrections a year on it? Comrade Jake,

00:39:58.140 one of our commenters saying, make CBC user pay. Yeah, I'm all with it. I'm not a national one,

00:40:02.680 but let them raise their money through subscriptions or let them raise it through

00:40:06.000 fundraising. Hold telethons. I don't care. Just don't make me pay for it. We don't need it.

00:40:11.060 we don't need it. What is the need anymore for a state broadcaster? I mean, they were formed in

00:40:17.200 the days when you had to get to some isolated parts of the country for communications with

00:40:20.860 radio stations or television. Now, thanks to Elon Musk, you can get a internet access anywhere on

00:40:28.020 the planet with Starlink. And just with other satellite dishes, if you're just looking for

00:40:33.820 television, you can get that anywhere in a relatively affordable way. When I was working

00:40:37.700 up in Anuvik and Tuktoyaktuk 15 years ago. Every house up there already had satellite dishes on

00:40:43.160 their roof. They had full access to broadcast and television and they had cell coverage.

00:40:47.660 They didn't need the CBC, but we still have it. So why is the government so dedicated to hanging

00:40:54.800 on to this dinosaur, this expensive piece of media, this obsolete piece of media that we don't need

00:41:00.040 any longer? Well, it's because that's the piece of media that never questions them. Remember,

00:41:04.780 again, I'm talking about we've got a massive, massive Chinese election interference scandal.

00:41:09.560 We've got Chinese Communist Party operatives threatening our members of Parliament. And you

00:41:15.680 know what you hear out of the CBC? Crickets. Dead silence. It's an embarrassment. And it's an

00:41:21.400 expensive embarrassment. But I mean, hey, if the Liberal government doesn't have the CBC running

00:41:25.780 cover for them, then maybe private markets will get in there and start asking questions they don't

00:41:29.740 want to answer. Thus, you can see why their love affair for the CBC continues. And it's maddening.

00:41:38.920 I'm going to talk about another one, an issue. I just got to get into this one. I know this gets

00:41:42.920 the commenters going with me and they don't always agree, but I still, see, this is where you get

00:41:47.640 polarized politics and I don't like how it gets played sometimes. So Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,

00:41:52.640 and I like DeSantis, don't get me wrong here, but he signed a bill into law on Tuesday that would 0.52

00:41:56.360 allow the death penalty, and I like the terminology in this one, for cases of child

00:42:00.740 rape. I'm tired of people, you know, talking about sexual interference and talking in circles

00:42:05.980 or things like that, or even the most vulgar and disgusting of people you see it. There

00:42:09.700 were some activists calling them minor attracted people. No, they're child rapists, they're 0.98

00:42:14.840 pederasts, they're pedophiles. Don't sugarcoat who those people are. I have no use for them, 1.00

00:42:21.100 but I also have no use for capital punishment.

00:42:26.220 That's where we depart.

00:42:27.860 That's where we have a problem.

00:42:29.340 And that's where I don't like it

00:42:30.080 when people start playing the black and white in politics.

00:42:32.660 Will you oppose capital punishment for child rapists?

00:42:35.260 Does that mean you support child rapists?

00:42:36.560 No, not for a second, not even slightly.

00:42:39.540 I just don't trust the government

00:42:41.660 to have the power to kill citizens.

00:42:44.480 That's the problem. 0.99

00:42:45.940 This is a government that's completely incompetent. 0.98

00:42:47.880 This is a government that is corrupted. 0.91

00:42:49.360 This is a government that locked us down for a virus.

00:42:53.720 They seized our bank accounts.

00:42:56.320 They raided churches.

00:42:57.900 They shut down restaurants.

00:42:59.200 Do you really want them to have the ability to kill citizens?

00:43:03.780 And people say, oh, we'll only use it in cases where it's 100% known for sure.

00:43:07.700 We never know 100%, guys.

00:43:10.020 Anything can be faked.

00:43:12.020 There was a piece I saw a while back on a laboratory.

00:43:15.020 I believe it was up in the New England area.

00:43:16.240 but it turned out it was underfunded and terribly, it was a forensic laboratory.

00:43:21.560 And it turns out the person running it was, it was just a basket case. And they had all sorts

00:43:26.180 of screw ups with genetic samplings and DNA things that people went to jail based on the

00:43:32.600 wrong outcomes of that lab. Because people are saying with DNA, we know for sure that this person

00:43:37.360 killed that person or this person raped that person. No, we don't actually. No, we don't.

00:43:41.240 I believe in life sentences. I'd like to see child rapists put on a bus, put to a prison

00:43:47.320 somewhere deep in the territories up there where the door will be welded shut and they will die 0.99

00:43:52.580 up there of a ripe old age. I'm perfectly fine with that. But I do not want to see the government

00:43:58.680 having the ability to irreversibly do something such as execute somebody. It's just too much to

00:44:07.640 entrust a government that can't even get its own payroll system right. And again, in Florida,

00:44:12.500 they're talking about, you know, the death penalty for people who do this on children under 12.

00:44:16.200 Remember, there have been people falsely convicted of those sorts of things. There have been cases

00:44:20.880 where people falsely accuse people of those awful, awful crimes. And it's not found out until later.

00:44:27.120 And at least it's still better that you can somewhat rectify it later than if what are you

00:44:32.720 going to do? Chisel something new on the gravestone? Oh, sorry about that. We got new evidence.

00:44:37.320 I guess you weren't guilty about that.

00:44:39.540 We've given your descendants some money and a lawsuit on it.

00:44:43.800 We'll try and do better next time.

00:44:45.940 Either way, sometimes, you know, there's complicated problems.

00:44:49.500 Capital punishment is kind of a simple solution to it.

00:44:52.240 And the point of justice systems should be prevention, sometimes reform.

00:44:56.520 You can't reform those child molesters.

00:44:58.080 I agree with that.

00:44:58.640 Keep them in for good.

00:44:59.800 But we should never set it up for vengeance, no matter how hard we feel it may be appropriate

00:45:03.940 or how little we think of those people being convicted under it,

00:45:08.940 who often, again, I'm not talking about nice people,

00:45:10.980 but don't jump out and say,

00:45:12.540 oh, he must feel soft on child molesters.

00:45:15.800 Of course not.

00:45:16.840 It's just that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

00:45:20.780 All right, let's check in.

00:45:21.900 We haven't talked to him in a while

00:45:23.320 with Jim Bousicum from Marketplace Commodities.

00:45:26.620 We're going to pivot a little,

00:45:27.500 something a little less intense

00:45:29.580 than the justice issue south of the border,

00:45:32.020 but very important.

00:45:33.160 and that's our agriculture commodities.

00:45:34.960 Hey, Jim, how you doing?

00:45:36.160 Hey, great, Corey.

00:45:36.960 How are you today?

00:45:37.900 Very good.

00:45:38.560 Very good.

00:45:39.140 It's been crazy times with the election,

00:45:40.840 but overall pretty good.

00:45:42.960 Good, good, good.

00:45:44.080 All right.

00:45:44.980 So yeah, we've got a lot to cover.

00:45:46.260 It's been a while

00:45:46.800 and it sounds like there's some big international issues

00:45:48.920 kind of affecting markets right now.

00:45:50.920 Yeah, we'll start there.

00:45:52.540 The biggest issue is geopolitics.

00:45:55.160 Russia and Ukraine continues to,

00:45:58.200 I wouldn't hardly call it trudging along,

00:45:59.720 but it's a serious issue.

00:46:01.640 So to your listeners,

00:46:02.500 I thought I'd just run through that real quick.

00:46:05.200 Six percent of the world exports of wheat come from Ukraine.

00:46:09.300 Twenty five percent come from Russia.

00:46:12.460 So the UN is brokering a grain corridor out of Ukraine, which is important. 0.89

00:46:19.000 But more importantly, if the war moves from Ukraine soil to perhaps Russian soil, as we've seen last night, there's a drone attack on in Russian soil.

00:46:29.920 So it would have a larger impact on the grain markets.

00:46:33.680 Right now, Russia continues to ship.

00:46:36.100 They ship to really most countries around the world,

00:46:39.500 whether we like it or not.

00:46:41.820 There are big sellers into Southeast Asia, into China,

00:46:45.960 and Canadian grain has to compete with that.

00:46:51.460 So we'll have to see how some of those things develop,

00:46:53.640 but I'd say it's important

00:46:57.560 that we keep our eye on that for sure.

00:47:00.480 Then outside markets, you'd said some other stuff on that.

00:47:04.080 I mean, these things impact, of course, the domestic things as well, and need to be watched, such as the crude oil markets these days.

00:47:10.520 Yeah, you know, it's always important as a producer, as a farmer, to pay attention to more than just what your local commodities are selling at.

00:47:22.020 Because you look at crude oil, it's been in a free fall for a few days.

00:47:27.480 It's actually dropped below $70 a barrel this morning.

00:47:29.920 and actually another one that I find of interest is sugar and I'll explain the reason why sugar's

00:47:36.280 actually been on the upswing it's corrected over the last few days but it's actually quite strong

00:47:42.320 so we would look at energy markets as sort of your industrial energy and sugar as sort of your

00:47:48.600 food energy so between the two of them they will have impact on the crops that you're growing

00:47:55.560 um we we tend to think of the food or the crops that we grow on the prairies as typically just

00:48:02.460 food or maybe feed stock that we grow well they're actually energy stock as well if you look at the

00:48:07.860 ethanol industry the biofuels industry a lot of the commodities that you're growing do end up as

00:48:13.540 an energy product somewhere along the line so keep an eye on those outside markets as well

00:48:18.580 well there's a lot to track and that's where you guys specialize uh so where can people find more

00:48:24.940 information about your organization? You've got it listed right there. We're always available.

00:48:30.860 Marketplace commodities, give us a call at the office. We have a team of dedicated traders that

00:48:35.560 are looking to help you market your grain. We are buying and selling grain across Western Canada,

00:48:42.460 across Alberta and Saskatchewan specifically. It's where most of the volume comes and we'd be happy

00:48:47.880 to hear from you. Great. Well, good to check in with you again, Jim, and we'll talk to you again

00:48:52.860 soon. All right. Thanks, Corey. Take care. Great. Thank you. Okay, guys, that kind of runs up our

00:49:00.620 time today. There's so many issues and not enough time. So again, that's that reminder. If you

00:49:06.820 haven't subscribed to the Western Standard yet, get on there, guys. Westernstandard.news

00:49:10.720 slash membership. Take one out. It's well worth it. Help support us. It gets you past that pesky

00:49:15.340 paywall so you can see all of that stuff, articles and columns without any of that hindrance. I will

00:49:22.300 be back again next week, guys, at this time. Thank you for tuning in, and we will talk again then.

00:49:31.980 Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken

00:49:36.680 long, long ago. These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms

00:49:43.500 regulations and legislation in Canada, and more importantly, educating the public about how we

00:49:49.500 keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people who become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:50:19.500 You

00:50:49.500 You

Western Standard - May 04, 2023

CMS： The scared cow of healthcare needs to be slain

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