Western Standard - CMS： Trudeau government corruption is poised to become much worse

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00:13:16.000 journalist Sean Polzer. He prolifically writes and covers a lot of those things you'll see on

00:13:21.560 there. This is the time I like to remind everybody the reason Sean gets his bills paid and the rest

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00:14:14.400 mean, come on, I'm going to, after I get finished with my next guest, I'm going to talk a little bit

00:14:18.940 about CTV and their latest bit of brilliance and seeing, you know, again, one of these bailout

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00:14:29.280 it. And if you haven't subscribed yet, guys, get on there, take one out. It's really appreciated and

00:14:34.140 it really helps us along. Okay. Well, I see our guest is in the lobby already. So if he's ready to

00:14:39.940 rolling and I pull them in and is Eric Bouchard, he's the MLA for Calgary Law Heed. And yeah,

00:14:48.300 we're going to talk a bit about, well, business in Alberta and how it's, well, I guess we're

00:14:54.100 suffering through COVID and is still suffering post COVID. Hi, Mr. Bouchard. How are you doing?

00:14:59.900 Good. How are you, Corey? Thanks for having me.

00:15:02.280 Oh, I really appreciate it. I know you've got some busy times in the legislature. I'll lay off on

00:15:07.600 bothering you with the million of other questions of what you guys are doing up there right now.

00:15:10.840 We'll stay focused on, on the business issue that's going on right now. I guess for people

00:15:16.980 unfamiliar with you, you know, before you came into the legislature a year ago, you were a small

00:15:21.680 business person in Calgary. Indeed. Yes. I was a small business owner. I started a small business in

00:15:28.500 2004, expanded to essentially a cafe to a full service restaurant, expanded in 2010, expanded

00:15:38.840 again, 2015. Our latest expansion was another, a little market on our plus 15 level. We opened in

00:15:47.620 January of 2020 and we had 10 weeks of phenomenal sales. Things were, we're going through the roof

00:15:54.780 after four really difficult years from 2015 to 2019. And then unfortunately forced to shut down as many

00:16:02.900 businesses were. We, you know, suffered the, the pains that, that all small business that were forced

00:16:09.420 to shut down went through. We, we tried to reopen when we were allowed to reopen with being in the

00:16:17.540 downtown core. There were, weren't any people, everyone was working from home. So we didn't really

00:16:22.260 have an option. So we, we stayed closed. And then a couple of years later, yeah, I was, I was done.

00:16:30.800 We, we couldn't, couldn't make it anymore. Gave the keys away. And then yeah, that's what pretty much

00:16:39.140 got me into doing what I'm doing now is the MLA for Calgary Lougheed. I just felt there was no

00:16:45.260 representation for small business. And I think it was in 2020, early, early 2022. I sent out an email

00:16:55.940 to some small business owners trying to mobilize, trying to get together. We essentially, we didn't

00:17:02.080 have a voice in my opinion. So we started off with eight of us the first week. And then I think

00:17:08.820 there's a group of over, it's roughly over 100, 110 guys that still get together on a, on a weekly

00:17:15.920 basis. And they, they asked me in December of 2022, if I would consider, sorry, 2023, no, 2022, if I'd

00:17:24.840 consider running at the point I was at, I had that summer, I was working at a golf course. I was 51

00:17:35.060 years old, did the first resume of my life. And I thought I would continue, you know, working

00:17:40.640 at a golf course until retirement. But two days prior to being asked if I would run, I was served

00:17:47.440 for, by the bank of Montreal for the loan that was outstanding, that I had to pay back and didn't

00:17:55.360 have any way of paying it back anymore, because my business was closed. So I decided why not,

00:18:02.880 why not run? And here I am today. Yeah, well, and it's a valid point, like a lot of people,

00:18:08.460 and I can, I don't blame them for wanting to just not think about the pandemic anymore. And I think

00:18:12.400 it's behind us and it's over. But for a lot of people, it's not over yet. Like there's a lot of

00:18:17.820 businesses, of course, that suffered dearly during the pandemic, really personally leveraged themselves

00:18:22.840 a lot. And they're still either, you know, they've, they've potentially gone broke, or they're still

00:18:27.820 treading water today to try and catch up on the, you know, for the financial beating they took over

00:18:33.440 those few years where they weren't allowed to do, to do business. Correct. No, the, the last week I

00:18:39.420 was home in the constituency, and it's, it's always great to be home and meet with constituents and

00:18:45.340 small business owners, but they're still feeling the effects. And I mean, from our side, all levels

00:18:52.220 of government, you know, we, we haven't done small business justice, in my opinion, and we're,

00:18:59.840 we're making strides, they're slow as, as everything seems to be in government. But I met with one small

00:19:06.580 business owner a week ago, and she switched her beer provider to save a penny a pint. You know,

00:19:15.120 like, put that in perspective, that's, that's how tight the margins are at, at even good times,

00:19:20.240 you know, the, the hospitality industry, the margins are difficult when things are good, but she,

00:19:27.240 she switched to save a penny a pint. And, you know, she can no longer take advantage, the food service 0.95

00:19:34.280 companies that deliver, they're fantastic, but they, you know, every cost has to be passed on. So she

00:19:40.940 is relegated to Walmart, Costco, Superstore now to pick up, you know, things that are maybe, you know,

00:19:47.900 five cents a pound cheaper, just to, to keep the doors open.

00:19:51.560 Oh, I know it all too well. I mean, I owned a pub for five years, just prior to the pandemic

00:19:56.680 hitting, I couldn't imagine since. And I mean, there's the whiplash effect of all of these things

00:20:02.300 coming down the line. I mean, our economy has been disrupted, the federal government, well,

00:20:06.180 every level of government started spending and borrowing like mad, which led, of course, to

00:20:10.480 inflation. And then you're forced to raise prices, and people are tight for funds. And one of the

00:20:15.320 first things you cut, if you're on a tight household budget is, well, you, we used to go

00:20:18.820 out for supper once a week, maybe it's going to be once every second week now, because we just can't

00:20:22.100 afford to anymore. And we're, again, businesses are really feeling that today. I mean, the only

00:20:26.800 business I see booming is dollar stores. Boy, they're springing up everywhere. Good on them.

00:20:31.360 But it's because people can't afford to shop anywhere else.

00:20:34.300 No, it's so true. And I've, you know, I feel all levels of government, the people who,

00:20:40.360 who were in charge, I guess, you know, from the advocacy for small business, which should have

00:20:48.420 been there in 2020 and 2021, wasn't there. You know, they, in, in my opinion, you know, I believe

00:20:56.140 it was the, I'll get a direct quote from the president of the chamber, Calgary Chamber of

00:21:01.860 Commerce, you know, they're, they're, they say they exist to help businesses reach their potential.

00:21:07.100 And as an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonpartisan organization, they build their

00:21:12.220 history to serve and advocate for business of all sizes and all sectors across the country.

00:21:17.400 And I'm going back to, would have been 2021, the president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce,

00:21:24.360 you know, her comments were today's announcement on the immediate removal of all pandemic measures

00:21:29.460 and restrictions ignores the importance of consumer confidence in our economy recovery.

00:21:34.900 You know, like put that in perspective, their, their role was to represent businesses, you

00:21:44.620 know, clearly veering out of, out of their lane.

00:21:48.540 Yeah. And just for, for context, that's Deborah Yedlin. And I've written a couple of

00:21:51.740 columns ripping into her for that in particular, I was furious because I mean, no matter where you

00:21:58.560 stand on things, if you know anything about business, that those restrictions were harming

00:22:04.420 businesses, they were slowing people down from coming into them, it was limiting the amount

00:22:08.140 of people who could dine there who could work there that the vaccine passports were reducing

00:22:12.180 your customer base. Again, to come out and say that it would be bad for business to lift those

00:22:17.820 restrictions was completely absurd. And contrary to what any person in business would have told

00:22:22.940 otherwise yet she's still heading that chamber of commerce today. And, and the Western standard,

00:22:28.080 just as a side note, before I let you go, we're a member of the Strathmore chamber of commerce

00:22:32.440 because we just don't want to waste our time and money on the Calgary one. Cause it's just

00:22:35.960 the chamber of woke.

00:22:37.400 Yeah, no. So, so fair. I appreciate that too. I, yeah, just for another, I used media, corporate

00:22:46.260 media, I believe it was 2017 or 2018 when times were tough, you know, the NDP government, there's

00:22:53.280 oil recession. I used one of the corporate media to get my message out how small businesses

00:22:59.100 were affected. 2020, late 2020, I had reached out to all corporate media and I won't name

00:23:07.800 them all here, but each one responded saying that they weren't interested in telling my story

00:23:14.220 at the time. And I was, you know, wasn't waving the white flag just yet, but there was a tsunami

00:23:22.100 coming of small businesses. And we haven't, we haven't even scratched the surface. I don't think

00:23:27.080 of, you know, bankruptcies, insolvencies. We could go on talking about mental health issues and how,

00:23:35.200 you know, small business owners are proud people as you know, they should be. But, you know, when you,

00:23:42.540 you have to put up this facade for your staff, for your family, and just to keep the sense that

00:23:48.580 everything is okay, you know, and there, that Kai can speak personally to that. There's, there's a

00:23:53.260 mental, mental toll to that. Oh, absolutely. It's exhausting. I mean, you've got a sense of

00:23:58.620 responsibility, as you said to yourself, to your staff, you don't want them to know necessarily

00:24:03.220 how close to the line you might actually be. It's horrifying to have to lay people off if

00:24:08.600 they're dependent on that, that, that income. And it breaks people down. Insolvencies in Canada,

00:24:14.140 I believe in January of this year, went up over 40% in one month. A part of that was all the SIBA

00:24:19.360 loans suddenly were due to be paid in, which was, I guess, I mean, it's just chicken and egg. It was

00:24:24.800 a good program if you could make it through. It's an interest-free loan with a forgivable piece

00:24:29.380 within it. But if the government hadn't shut everybody down in the first place, you wouldn't

00:24:32.820 need it. I agreed. Yeah. And they, you know, the, the SIBA loan, what people fail to really

00:24:39.300 understand, you know, my, my own personal experience, our rent was 17 and a half thousand

00:24:45.080 dollars a month. You know, we borrowed $60,000, but put that in perspective, how there's other

00:24:50.920 costs as well. Like I was under the, I was planning to reopen a summer of 2021. My hot water tank

00:25:00.140 started leaking in the restaurant and we weren't open. And I ended up spending almost $3,500

00:25:06.060 to repair it, even though I didn't have any, there was no, no revenue coming in to look after that.

00:25:13.880 So those are like just one small story of, of the, how many, like how many small business people

00:25:20.420 have suffered and continue to suffer. And those who have made it out, you know, fantastic. And I would

00:25:26.040 encourage anyone, you know, my background on hospitality, obviously, but you know, when you

00:25:31.920 consider where you're spending your dollars, think, think locally first, if, if you really can,

00:25:38.000 you know, it's not a soundbite, it's not advertising. It's, it's something like those

00:25:43.760 dollars that are spent in a community, they stay in the community, you know, two thirds of,

00:25:48.580 of every dollar that's spent goes back into the community. And, you know, if you have to go

00:25:55.260 somewhere else, just, just think of where, where those dollars are going, where the corporate

00:25:59.720 offices are, but yeah, how many, how many local families are being, being served by the money

00:26:04.720 spent in the community?

00:26:07.540 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's a little bit of a things for us to step up and do our part if we

00:26:11.880 can now. So you've stepped up, you're in the legislature. You can add that, that perspective

00:26:16.320 now of, of somebody who's been in the field of a small business. What is being done or what can be

00:26:22.780 done on the legislative level? I, I know this, there's always talk about reducing red tape, but

00:26:27.000 we've been hearing about that talk for, for many, many years now, and the red tape just never seems

00:26:31.040 to quite actually reduce it. Are there initiatives finally underway?

00:26:34.460 There are some initiatives underway. I've talked with many at length with Minister of Red Tape Reduction,

00:26:40.980 Dale Nally. He's, he's, he's very active. I've also talked with Minister Rajon Sahani,

00:26:47.480 Advanced Education and Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade, Minister Matt Jones. And there are some

00:26:56.620 initiatives. Also, we do have a parliamentary secretary of small business, Tani Yao, and we're,

00:27:02.460 we're just at the, at the beginning stages. And, you know, prior to me getting into government,

00:27:07.220 I don't know how things were, but I'm, I'm hopefully bringing more, more discussions around

00:27:13.860 small business and how we can support small business initiatives and looking forward to,

00:27:18.500 to any put, any input from, from your viewers. Excellent. And then I, I guess further since

00:27:25.280 you're in there, I mean, we're always, it seems just one breakout or one emergency or something

00:27:30.740 away from a, you know, a government being tempted to crack down and, and, and restrict or get in the

00:27:36.980 way of business again. I can only imagine at least hopefully we have more voices in government

00:27:41.580 this time that would speak up and say, whoa, hold your horses. The cure may be worse than the

00:27:46.660 disease if something else comes up in the future. Correct. Yes. And I know not just myself. I mean,

00:27:52.300 that's one of the, the main motivators that got me into the position I am is to stand up for small

00:27:58.680 business and say, no, we won't allow this as a small business people. And I know that the,

00:28:03.900 that our government shares that sentiment. There's also, and I'm stuck. I can't find the correct

00:28:09.540 paperwork right now, but there is a, there's a petition that, that will be going around a private

00:28:18.180 petition to make sure that, you know, small business can, small business people can sign that

00:28:24.040 and put it forward to government and it'll be tabled in the, in the fall legislature.

00:28:30.620 Great. And I mean, that's an important part. I mean, you got to, you know, as a business owner,

00:28:36.040 I know you're busy, business owners are busy. They got a million things on the go and everything,

00:28:39.280 but they should communicate outwards with their local representative, make sure they've got some,

00:28:43.680 some rapport going on. So if there are problems, I mean, government gets disconnected from people

00:28:48.320 on the ground and that's when things go bad and it can happen, you know, get dome disease and whatnot.

00:28:53.500 So making sure to reach out and remain engaged is really important.

00:28:58.280 I think that's, that's great advice, you know, to, to the small business out there,

00:29:02.860 small business owner out there, who's listening or watching really do get engaged, you know,

00:29:08.400 contact your, at the municipal level, level at the provincial level be involved, you know,

00:29:15.180 attend a constituency association meeting, have your voices heard, you know, send, send an email,

00:29:21.340 send a voicemail, get in contact with your local chamber of commerce. You know, we,

00:29:26.280 what I think happened and this is, you know, small business owners have their head down there,

00:29:33.460 they're in their lane doing what they do. There's, and I can speak to that myself, you know,

00:29:38.080 I was never really involved in any government issues other than showing up and voting every

00:29:43.820 four years, but we collectively, we have a loud voice as small business owners, but, but on our own,

00:29:51.900 you know, as we, we saw, we witnessed for a couple of years, we, we really didn't have a voice.

00:29:56.680 And when we leaned on the people who we expected to advocate for us, that, that voice was,

00:30:03.620 was no longer there.

00:30:05.260 Well, it's good to know we have some government members who are, you know, again, with that

00:30:09.080 experience and willing to speak up if, and when the challenge comes and just that reminder to

00:30:13.220 people, that's really what I wanted to bring you on is don't let people know it's not over for

00:30:17.760 small businesses, not even by a long shot. I mean, it's better than it was a few years ago,

00:30:21.960 but a lot, if they haven't gone broke are still really struggling. So, you know, try to help out

00:30:26.460 your local business. And, and again, I guess, so, you know, support your, your local representatives

00:30:31.640 to keep them solvent.

00:30:33.820 Yeah, no, I encourage every, every small business owner, please share your stories. I'll be working

00:30:39.740 with some initiatives on some initiatives with, with all of our UCP MLAs too. It's not going to be

00:30:47.460 a small business month, but to encourage, we'll be highlighting, you know, small businesses in

00:30:52.020 each constituency to support as a, you know, because if we, if we don't continue to support

00:30:58.020 small business, we're going to lose small business and we're going to turn around one

00:31:01.640 day and what's left, you know, I, I don't, I don't even want to imagine what that would

00:31:07.820 look like, but, but we, we need to, this is a, a wave that's coming and it, if it's not

00:31:14.940 already here. So I'm sounding the alarm, please go out and support your local small businesses.

00:31:22.120 It's absolutely important. Before I let you go, one of our commenters, Shirley Gervais said,

00:31:25.760 you know, many of us send emails to our elected officials and receive no responses. And, and that

00:31:29.600 varies, you know, depends on who your officials are and so on, but there is a cynicism and, and often

00:31:33.420 a lot of representatives aren't necessarily responsive, but, but you have been fantastically.

00:31:38.680 So where, where can people, I guess, reach you and, and you know, and, and just follow

00:31:43.220 you to see what you've been doing out there.

00:31:45.000 Sure. Yeah. So I'm on all social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, a little bit. My direct

00:31:52.620 email, you know, is calgary.lawheed at assembly.ab.ca. And if you have an MLA, regardless of where

00:32:02.000 they are, what, what allegiance they hold, and they're not being responsive, I don't want to

00:32:06.840 take the burden and speak on their behalf, but please forward emails to me and I could forward

00:32:12.620 it to them and maybe, maybe try to try to get a response.

00:32:16.780 Great. Well, much appreciated. I really appreciate you coming in today and then what you're doing in

00:32:21.360 the legislature. Perhaps, you know, we can talk again down the road and see some of the progress,

00:32:26.160 hopefully in improving things for our small businesses in Alberta.

00:32:28.820 I would love that. No, thanks for the opportunity to give small business a voice.

00:32:34.460 It's a, it's a weird, it's strange for me that I sit up in Edmonton, you know, after being, I still,

00:32:40.440 you know, I had dinner with the premier last night and I was talking to my wife on the way home. I said,

00:32:45.100 you know, just how things changed and I'm happy to be where I am. I'd be just as happy running my

00:32:50.560 business, but I feel that, you know, I'm, I'm here for a purpose. And I thank you for giving me the

00:32:58.140 opportunity to, to, to be heard.

00:33:01.500 That's appreciated. Okay. Well, we'll talk again soon.

00:33:04.500 You bet. Thanks, Corey.

00:33:05.580 Great. Thank you. So that was again, Calgary Law Heed MLA, Eric Bouchard. It's his first

00:33:10.100 year in office and yeah, he's hard at it. And again, I like that messaging. I know. And I

00:33:16.520 understand what Shirley's saying. It can feel frustrating. You could feel like they aren't

00:33:19.600 listening. It can feel like they're indifferent, you know, and it doesn't matter which, even if you

00:33:24.640 have an NDP MLA or whatnot, often, we can't speak for everyone. Often though, they really do care.

00:33:30.800 They might have a different ideology than you, but they really do want to hear from you. And they are

00:33:36.080 concerned about the businesses. Sometimes you might even actually help them understand things a little

00:33:40.700 better. So try to communicate with your, your representatives as Mr. Bouchard said, on all three

00:33:45.600 levels, municipal, federal, and provincial, it can only help. I mean, the worst that'll happen is they

00:33:50.600 ignore you, but a lot of them pay more attention than people realize. And it's worth reaching out

00:33:55.200 and communicating with them. So I appreciate him coming on because he has small business gets

00:33:58.940 forgotten. Look, big business is important too. Of course, those big corporations, I know people don't

00:34:03.260 like them, but that's how you get economies of scale and you can buy products at Walmart for a good price

00:34:07.100 and so on. But for your local community, plus I believe most Canadians are employed by small

00:34:12.280 business, businesses of under like a hundred employees. That's where the majority of us are

00:34:15.940 working. So, but those are also the ones most vulnerable. They don't have a big capital pool to

00:34:21.620 fall back on. If times get tough, if something happens, it's very difficult. As Mr. Bouchard said,

00:34:26.420 he was in the hospitality industry. And as I said, I owned a pub for five years. I tell you what,

00:34:30.840 when hard times hit and you're in that industry, it doesn't matter how much you think your banker

00:34:35.660 loves you as nice as they are when you got your mortgage and your car loan and all your, you know,

00:34:40.760 your credit cards and everything with the bank. When you mentioned borrowing money for a restaurant or a pub,

00:34:45.680 if you want to see a banker's butt snap shut harder than, you know, to crack walnuts,

00:34:50.740 that's the way to go. They despise lending money to hospitality industry businesses. And it's a high 0.97

00:34:56.100 risk. Fair enough, that's business, but you got, that's also why they are so vulnerable. If you hit

00:35:01.080 a low spot, it's not so easy as just going out and taking out a demand loan so you can ride out the

00:35:07.160 tough times. Quite often, you just don't have it. And what happens then is a lot of business owners

00:35:11.960 leverage themselves personally. They might refinance their home. They might cash their

00:35:16.240 RRSPs. But again, it puts them in dire, dire trouble if the business doesn't recover fast

00:35:23.780 enough. And it still could be a viable business, but you know, you get into that hole and you're

00:35:27.260 trying to pay the interest and you're trying to keep up and suddenly it comes down. So just

00:35:31.280 reminding everybody, it's not over yet for a lot of the small businesses out there. The damage done

00:35:37.340 by the bad policies, the restrictions during the pandemic is still being felt by a lot of people.

00:35:44.600 Okay. I mentioned earlier, I wanted to talk a bit about legacy media. Yeah. One of my favorite

00:35:47.920 areas to bash, it's a bit self-serving, but it's important. Something I saw last night on Twitter,

00:35:53.780 it comes out, you know, or X, I should say, CTV. What's out a headline? This is beautiful.

00:35:59.880 Now the headline says, terminally ill Palestinian prisoner dies after 38 years in Israeli custody.

00:36:06.420 I'm going to tell you about a media term. It's called burying the lead. That's when you take

00:36:11.620 a story and you actually put the most important parts of the story way deep, deep down in the body

00:36:17.980 of the story rather than having them up front and center. If you're writing news copy, you should

00:36:21.260 actually kind of go in a descending order of the most important parts of the story and kind of get

00:36:24.980 down to the details later. But when you bury the lead, you actually take the important part and bury it

00:36:28.560 and then just go on to the fluff and distractions to begin with. So yes, it is true. A terminally ill

00:36:34.560 Palestinian prisoner did die after 38 years in Israeli custody. If you see nothing but that headline,

00:36:39.080 and unfortunately a lot of people only read the headlines, you think that's terrible. Those darned 0.99

00:36:43.220 Israelis keeping some poor man in jail for almost 40 years. They died of old age. This is awful. This is 1.00

00:36:49.800 awful. You know, the part they forgot to mention is why was this man in custody for 38 years? But

00:36:56.480 instead CTV was going on about Walid Dhaka was the longest imprisoned Palestinian currently in jail in

00:37:03.400 Israel. Oh, those nasty Israelis. Well, let's talk about it. In 1984, this Walid Dhaka kidnapped 19-year-old 0.99

00:37:10.180 Moshe Tamim when he got off a bus. And after he kidnapped him, he cut out Moshe's eyes, he castrated 0.69

00:37:17.140 him, he slowly mutilated him. He tortured him almost to death before shooting him. That's why that walking 0.94

00:37:25.260 piece of feces was in jail for 40 years. CTV neglected to mention that in their headline. 0.95

00:37:32.300 Okay? You can be critical of Israel. There's lots of room for it. You can be critical of Netanyahu.

00:37:37.460 There's plenty to be critical. I really wish somebody less corrupt than him was leading Israel

00:37:41.100 right now. But this kind of crap coming from our legacy media, this leading headline, making it sound 0.99

00:37:47.740 like, and then I listened to, I tortured myself. I listened to talk radio this morning and they were 0.99

00:37:51.340 talking to some guest who's going on about how Israel's holding thousands and thousands of

00:37:55.680 detainees and that's what they won't release in order, you know, with Hamas to swap as a prisoner

00:38:00.680 swap. They're trying to draw a moral equivalence to criminals who are in prison to the young women

00:38:08.920 who were snatched up from a music festival by terrorists and have been raped mercilessly for the

00:38:13.960 last seven months. That's, they're trying to say that's the same thing as the criminals, the murderers,

00:38:19.360 the torturers that Israel has in prison right now. You know what? Israel probably has a few 0.65

00:38:23.540 in there that shouldn't be there. Most countries, it seems, do manage to convict a few innocent

00:38:27.660 people, but it's not 9,000 detainees. They're prisoners, they're crooks, they're murderers, 0.98

00:38:31.520 they're rapists. Don't try to say that's the same as the hostages that the terrorists, and I'll say 1.00

00:38:38.580 terrorists, even if CBC won't, the terrorists that Hamas took from that music festival. It's just

00:38:45.300 sickening. It's sickening. Make a real case, you guys. Don't try to undercut what happened. We see 0.73

00:38:49.840 that's not the first time for CTV. If you might remember a while back, there was an activist and

00:38:54.180 she had Canadian ties. Her name was Vivian Silver. She was actually very pro-Hamas. She was very pro-Palestine 0.98

00:39:00.780 trying to help them out. Well, she got murdered. She was kidnapped and murdered on October 7th,

00:39:07.420 and CTV came out there with this headline, Vivian Silver has died after being missing. That was their

00:39:12.980 headline. The real headline is Vivian Silver was kidnapped by Hamas and murdered. But instead,

00:39:21.380 no, she died. It may sound like she went for a walk and got missing, maybe had a heart attack or

00:39:25.260 something. Let's get some real coverage going on out there, guys. This is ridiculous. It's absurd.

00:39:34.360 And we've got to be realistic about it. You can't draw these moral equivalences between these things.

00:39:39.280 But the media, the legacy media, guys, that's why, again, self-serving, I know,

00:39:44.120 keep supporting the independent ones. We aren't always necessarily right, but you need balance.

00:39:49.080 You need more going on. And that example, like I said, with burying the lead with CTV,

00:39:53.300 that's the way they can take news items. And they're not exactly giving you misinformation.

00:40:00.020 They're just packaging it in a way so that you don't see the full information.

00:40:04.700 Another one that came up as well, when there was the hostage swap, I can't remember her name

00:40:09.700 offhand, but they showed these terrible pictures of this person released from an Israeli prison,

00:40:15.480 and they're giving back to, you know, to swap for some hostages with Hamas to try and free some of

00:40:19.500 the people that Hamas kidnapped. And there's this woman, and her face is all burned, and she looked

00:40:24.060 like a hot dog that had been on the barbecue way too long. Her fingers were all shriveled up and cooked. 0.98

00:40:28.500 And of course, people were freaking, say, look what happened to her in that Israeli prison.

00:40:31.860 And again, context, look a little farther down the story, because people were assuming

00:40:35.700 that she'd been burned and mutilated and tortured in an Israeli prison. No.

00:40:39.460 It turns out she was a suicide bomber. Not a very good one, because she failed on a couple

00:40:44.240 of levels. For one, she survived, so that's not a very good suicide bomber, although she did 0.99

00:40:48.280 barbecue herself rather terribly. She was planning to go into the middle of a bunch of people and

00:40:53.180 blow herself up, as suicide bombers are inclined to do. But she prematurely detonated, cooked herself 0.73

00:41:01.060 pretty badly, and ended up in an Israeli prison. Quite rightly so. But again, that's way down in 1.00

00:41:08.100 the text. That's farther down in the story. Instead, they make it look like Israel was keeping this poor

00:41:13.700 woman and had terribly abused her while she was in prison. Not the case in that case. Either way,

00:41:20.580 CTV is just beyond the pale. It is terrible. All right, let's see. This is some bigger news in Alberta,

00:41:27.540 and it's going to be interesting to watch this. This has been hitting the news a lot, too. And here

00:41:31.060 shows some of the double standard. Again, you know, listening to talk radio, I'm listening to these

00:41:34.180 guys going on, oh, here goes Daniel Smith, just fighting for the sake of fighting, and she's, 0.93

00:41:39.060 you know, going to be now stepping on municipal rights by perhaps bringing up a bill that might

00:41:43.700 stop the federal government from bypassing the provincial government and going to municipalities.

00:41:47.860 Well, for one, this is one of my favorite things to keep pointing out to people. Quebec has just such

00:41:55.220 a policy already. Why is it always quite all right when Quebec asserts its provincial authority,

00:42:01.700 but Albertans are always arseholes when they do? Why that double standard? Why is it wrong for 0.98

00:42:07.380 Albertans to stand up for themselves against Ottawa, but it's all right for Quebec? There is a double

00:42:13.140 standard Canada, a huge one and a problematic one. And then we got a cynical prime minister

00:42:19.780 who comes into Alberta. He does it to Saskatchewan. He does it in every province.

00:42:22.980 He bypasses the local government that is in charge of that jurisdiction in areas like housing and things

00:42:27.300 like that. He dangles the money for political points in front of municipalities, but he leaves the

00:42:32.660 rest of it to the province. The province has to deal with the administration. The province has to deal

00:42:35.780 with the fallout. And if they complain about it, he calls them all selfish, uncooperative jerks who want to 1.00

00:42:41.860 cut off the money from their well-deserving citizens because they're trying to score political points. 0.99

00:42:46.260 No, they're trying to stop a prime minister from using our own money to campaign for himself by

00:42:52.100 trying to bribe citizens through the municipalities. So I mean, think about who is upset by this

00:42:57.940 legislation. Jody Gondek, yes, the worst mayor in Calgary in history. She's upset with it. So if Jody's

00:43:05.060 upset with it, Smith's probably on the right track. They're not trying to say no to getting our tax

00:43:11.700 dollars back from the federal government. They're trying to say, well, we need to have our control

00:43:16.100 of how we deal with that money when it gets here. It's not your job, Prime Minister Trudeau,

00:43:22.340 to go directly to these municipalities like this because their money always comes with strings.

00:43:27.860 And we need government out of our face, not getting in. Speaking of which, though, you know,

00:43:33.300 I mean, again, you listen to local media, you listen to activists, you listen to the rest of the

00:43:37.460 snow oak. Alberta's terrible. It's awful. You know, they're abusing trans people or you name

00:43:42.500 it, whatever other garbage. Well, the numbers are really coming in interesting. You know, 1.00

00:43:46.100 BC, here we go. Lotus land, land of the woke, beautiful climate, great salmon fishing.

00:43:51.220 You know, it's a good destination. Everybody should be moving to BC, right?

00:43:54.420 Province to province, they'd be going to BC in hordes right now. I mean, Alberta's so intolerant, 1.00

00:43:58.500 and we get cold weather and mosquitoes and all that. Well, the numbers are in BC,

00:44:02.100 BC, interprovincial migration-wise, lost 8,600 people. 8,600 people moved out of BC. Said,

00:44:08.740 nah, we're gone. They had net loss. BC is growing, but it's through immigration from outside of the

00:44:13.940 country. Alberta gained 55,000 interprovincial migrants, people moving from other provinces

00:44:20.740 to Alberta. If we're so terrible, why is everybody coming here? You know, we see the same thing

00:44:28.020 down in the United States. It's been very interesting. You look at the hard left states,

00:44:31.860 the blue states down there, the Democrat states. The worst of them, of course, are California

00:44:36.020 and New York. Big centers. You know, they've got a lot of resources. They've got a lot of money in

00:44:42.260 there. They got things going on. Yet guess what? They're losing people. People are moving out of

00:44:48.020 those states like nobody's business. Where are they going? They're going to Texas. They're going to

00:44:53.940 Florida. They're going to Tennessee. They're going to Republican states. They're going to places

00:44:58.580 where you can prosper. They're going to places with smaller government. They're going to places

00:45:03.700 that aren't woke, that aren't ridiculous, that aren't stupid like California, which is just going 1.00

00:45:08.340 completely insane. California's raised the minimum wage for their fast food workers to $20 an hour. 0.99

00:45:16.420 In California, 20 American dollars an hour, real dollars, not the Canadian peso.

00:45:21.140 Guess what's already been happening? Thousands of fast food workers are getting laid off. Prices are

00:45:25.940 shooting through the roof. Look, if you could end poverty by raising minimum wage, somebody would

00:45:29.780 have done it by now. But people without an understanding of economics think it's a solution.

00:45:33.700 It's a band-aid and it's not a good one. It will help them for a very short time. The people who are

00:45:39.540 at entry level positions, because they'll get a raise from $15 an hour to $20 an hour. But guess what?

00:45:45.220 Only four out of five got that because one out of five got laid off to cover it. And then they find out

00:45:49.700 that as the prices of everything else go up, that $20 an hour doesn't buy what it used to. In fact,

00:45:56.180 it's buying as much or less than the $15 an hour they had before. What you need is a strong economy.

00:46:01.860 You need the natural raising of wages to draw people in to work for you, not an artificial

00:46:08.980 bar that's set through a minimum wage. It doesn't work. And then everybody all the way along the line

00:46:14.260 gets raises. Great. But it just leads to inflation. They just don't seem to understand. It doesn't get

00:46:18.820 rid of the underlying problem with the poverty. The poverty was due to a bad economy. If you want

00:46:23.380 a better economy, you need the government to get out of the bloody way. That's the way to do it,

00:46:26.420 not get in there further. So yes, even though California has that $20 minimum wage, do you think

00:46:31.860 people are all rushing to move out to California to cross-country ski and the poop on the San Francisco

00:46:36.820 streets? Yeah, that's how bad it is there now. No, they're leaving California. They're running as hard

00:46:41.780 as they can to states with much lower minimum wages because anybody with ambition and a work ethic can

00:46:46.020 do a heck of a lot better and they can buy a home a lot cheaper. They can make good money

00:46:50.820 and the government is out of their face and it's not as woke and ridiculous and insane. 0.94

00:46:55.860 Another thing with BC, the BC Alberta thing going on and we're watching that and I'm watching with 0.83

00:46:59.780 interest is of course the addiction epidemic and it's hitting both provinces and neither province

00:47:04.020 is having a good time trying to get it under control. It's a catastrophe in all ends.

00:47:08.580 Both provinces are dealing with record overdoses. I won't talk about drug toxicity and all that

00:47:13.380 enable us crap trying to make it sound like we don't have an addiction problem and it's just that 0.80

00:47:16.980 they aren't getting good enough drugs. They're overdosing. They're overdosing and they're dying 0.99

00:47:21.700 in both provinces. But Alberta is really pushing on a treatment focused agenda. So there's the

00:47:29.780 announcement of that Canadian Centre for Recovery Excellence to work on best practices, mental health

00:47:35.940 and addiction services. That's great. We really need treatment spaces. We need better treatment. We need to get

00:47:42.020 addicts into treatment as soon as they're ready. That's the best course we have. I'm not wholly

00:47:47.780 against a degree of safe consumption or harm mitigation. Yes, we need to keep the addicts

00:47:52.740 alive as long as possible to get them into recovery. But it's not an end and the enabalists

00:47:57.540 won't stop at safe consumption. They're a cult. They're loonies. They also say, well, we've also got to

00:48:01.940 give them drugs. We got to let them take the drugs in the hospitals. We got to let them take the drugs in

00:48:04.980 the playgrounds. I wish I was kidding. In BC, it's a constitutional right, a charter right to take drugs

00:48:09.860 in a playground. Again, you can't smoke cigarette there. But you can shoot some heroin. This is wrong.

00:48:17.300 We're going to watch and I don't, I don't, I'm not going to dance for glee if and when I believe the

00:48:22.980 Alberta model succeeds much better than BC and eventually it's going to be a long game. We'll

00:48:27.700 see the addiction and the overdoses going down while BC's continue to rise because BC's will continue to

00:48:32.900 rise and it's still horrible to behold. I just hope that Alberta can turn into an example to show

00:48:37.700 a better path. I mean, it's always, there's no magic bullet. There's, there's no simple way to

00:48:41.220 deal with this, but I think Alberta is going on the right course. And I'm speaking as a recovering

00:48:45.860 alcoholic. I'm familiar with addiction, guys. Not in every asset of it, aspect of it, but I'm familiar.

00:48:51.860 All right. Well, that's filled us up for today, guys. Thank you all for tuning in. Lots to cover,

00:48:57.780 lots we did cover. Be sure to come back again tonight. The pipeline is going to be on. As I said,

00:49:03.460 we're going to break down a few more issues, share these links, take out a subscription. We appreciate

00:49:09.300 it. Let's keep independent media independent so we can keep getting the real truth out there,

00:49:15.940 or at least my version of it. So thanks for tuning in. We will see you all again next week at this time.

00:49:33.460 Bye.

00:49:36.660 Bye.

Western Standard - April 10, 2024

CMS： Trudeau government corruption is poised to become much worse

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