Western Standard - December 06, 2023


CMS： Trudeau is down, but not out.


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

190.70375

Word Count

9,431

Sentence Count

642

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Join us as we head into the new year with lots of news to cover, including the latest on the Trudeau government, the Alberta government, and much more. Later, we have a special guest on the show, Tim Moen, who is a paramedic who has been on the front lines.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:00:30.860 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show as we head our way up towards the holiday season.
00:00:37.480 Man, it's creeping up fast this year. Still so far very brown in Calgary. We've got no snow going on.
00:00:43.260 It's not looking terribly winter, Christmas-y or festive. I'm kind of enjoying that, but I guess eventually we'll have to get the moisture in the ground.
00:00:50.000 I'm sure it'll catch up with us. Of course, the climate change folks are saying the world's going to end and we'll all dry up and just blow away, but I'm not too worried about that.
00:00:58.580 But all the same, we could use sometimes a little bit of snow to make things look a little better. I know some other parts of the province are getting it, though.
00:01:05.020 So, yeah, we've got lots to cover, lots of news. It's pushing right up into the new year this year.
00:01:09.940 Stuff going on in Parliament, stuff going on in Alberta, stuff going on in Dubai with all those environmentalists enjoying themselves in luxury.
00:01:17.500 Good to see you. For those joining live, we see Karen there saying good morning and good morning to you.
00:01:22.020 And, what is it, Corinne? I'm not too sure of the pronunciation of that one.
00:01:26.220 And, yes, it's a good time to remind you, use that comment scroll, guys, if you're on live. I like seeing it.
00:01:30.480 Send the questions to me for my guests or just comment with each other.
00:01:34.680 Just make sure to keep things civil, you know?
00:01:38.000 You don't have to scrap with each other all the time. We can do it a lot of the time. We're not in there.
00:01:41.840 All right. Later on, I'm going to have a guest on.
00:01:44.080 Tim Moen, he's been on before. He was the leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada.
00:01:47.980 He's been a paramedic for a long, long time.
00:01:50.680 And we're going to talk. He wrote a great long article on his substack about EMS and healthcare reform.
00:01:57.260 And I just really wanted to go further into that.
00:01:59.000 I mean, somebody who works on, we always hear about the front lines.
00:02:01.360 Well, let's talk about somebody who's actually working on those front lines.
00:02:04.140 And with Tim being on the show, I know Jane will be tuning in for sure.
00:02:06.860 So, I've got to behave myself better than usual with the rest of the program as things go.
00:02:11.340 So, let me talk about, though, what the show has been titled about.
00:02:13.420 Good to see you there, Jordan and John popping in.
00:02:17.120 And, as you see, I'm basically saying Trudeau is gone, down, but he's not out.
00:02:22.380 And we can't count him out. Oh, I want to count him out.
00:02:24.740 I want to see him gone. I've never made a secret of that.
00:02:27.760 But, you know, slippery like an eel, he's not gone.
00:02:30.880 And I'm going to kind of explain why.
00:02:32.600 I mean, in the polls, he's just, you know, getting decimated.
00:02:35.000 It looks like his government would be wiped out if an election was held tomorrow.
00:02:39.020 The problem is an election, if it's held, is probably going to be two years away.
00:02:42.080 Now, I'll explain why.
00:02:44.580 So, let's talk about Canadians.
00:02:45.700 Canadians, everybody, everybody's an environmentalist, or at least they are until it comes time to pay the bill.
00:02:50.960 And the tune changes dramatically.
00:02:53.060 So, I mean, the Trudeau regime, lately they've been discovering the hard way that support for the government's continuing with its free fall in public support.
00:03:00.720 Climate change, I mean, it doesn't mean a damn thing to Canadians when they can't make the rent or fill the refrigerator.
00:03:04.760 Canadians are drawing that link now between the economically damaging climate taxes and policies and the difficulty they're having in making ends meet.
00:03:13.360 And they're taking it out on the federal liberals.
00:03:15.680 A recent polling, though, shows that still 72% of Canadians are concerned about climate change.
00:03:20.620 Concerned.
00:03:21.220 But, you know, they aren't dismissing it or whatnot.
00:03:23.780 But when they see, when you measure by what's your top issue, only 5% of Canadians see that as their top issue.
00:03:30.740 It's among the issues, but it's not at the top.
00:03:32.260 Now, inflation is at the top right now at 20% of Canadians, with health care at 14%, housing at 13%, and the economy at 11%.
00:03:40.900 So, building windmills while political leaders virtue signal at lavish overseas climate conferences doesn't sit well with Canadians who can't find a family doctor or are just one paycheck away from losing their homes.
00:03:52.020 And the Trudeau government stubbornly remains blind to the sentiment of Canadians as it continues to pile on more regulations and taxes, contributing to more inflation.
00:04:00.780 And public support for the liberals continues to collapse.
00:04:03.520 Like I said, if an election was held today, they'd be obliterated.
00:04:06.020 Now, while Canadians are sick and tired of the ineffective liberal policies raising the cost of living, one has to ask, you know, if Canadians are ready to face the austerity that comes with fiscal responsibility.
00:04:17.080 See, among those who polled who felt the country needs to transition away from carbon-based energy generation, only 5% of them felt the price of that transition should be paid by consumers.
00:04:28.720 Well, 32% felt that industry should pay for the price for this transition through taxes and regulations.
00:04:35.200 And another 18% felt the government should have to pay for the changes.
00:04:39.700 Well, a quarter of the respondents felt nothing should be done and the technology will fix things over time.
00:04:43.780 Well, what the vast majority, obviously, of respondents don't seem to understand is they're always ultimately going to be personally paying the bill, no matter which way you do it.
00:04:51.480 There's no magical form of government money generation aside from taxation.
00:04:55.820 Likewise, corporations, they get their funds ultimately from consumers.
00:04:59.280 There's no escaping the fact that individuals eventually end up paying the bill.
00:05:03.520 The only thing people are escaping is reality.
00:05:06.800 Conservative supporters, they have to look at those numbers and remind themselves not to get complacent while the liberal numbers plunge.
00:05:13.180 You see, clearly electors are fed up with the liberal government, but it doesn't mean they're ready to embrace austerity either.
00:05:19.180 In the next election, the Trudeau liberals are going to promise to save the world from climate change.
00:05:22.800 They'll promise citizens they won't have to pay the bill to do so.
00:05:25.660 I mean, it'll be a clear lie, but we have a large segment of the population that would rather be lied to than face the hard realities of what they have to pay for.
00:05:34.740 Trudeau can't seem to go a day without another spending announcement, despite the bleak federal outlook and a huge growing federal deficit.
00:05:41.060 These actions aren't simply fiscal incompetence, though.
00:05:44.620 There's plenty of that to be found in the liberal ranks.
00:05:46.980 But no, this is strategic.
00:05:48.280 What they're doing is establishing programs and getting an ever-increasing number of Canadians dependent upon them.
00:05:53.740 They're spending generations, the next generations of Canadians, into debt to try and buy electoral love.
00:05:59.120 And you know what?
00:05:59.540 It might work.
00:06:00.340 You see, conservatives have to campaign carefully.
00:06:04.020 Calling for the elimination of spending programs and entire government departments might sell well to the conservative base.
00:06:09.360 But remember, there's going to be imagery of thousands of people being laid off, and it's going to be tugging at the heartstrings of the Canadian swing voters.
00:06:14.740 Remember, they don't like fiscal reality.
00:06:17.020 They just want more promises and more shiny things.
00:06:20.140 They don't mean the conservatives shouldn't give up on campaigning based on fiscal responsibility.
00:06:23.960 This nation desperately needs it, and it'd be disingenuous to hide such intentions while campaigning.
00:06:29.060 They just have to be really careful about it.
00:06:31.560 Canadians need to be eased back into reality.
00:06:34.380 The campaign in the next couple of years needs to be respectfully educational.
00:06:38.480 People need to understand the need for spending restraint and how they're ultimately going to benefit from that.
00:06:44.500 In the early 1990s, we faced double-digit interest rates.
00:06:48.100 That shocked voters into supporting balanced budgets as debt servicing costs exploded.
00:06:52.420 And while Canada's pouring, what, $40, $50 billion a year into debt servicing,
00:06:55.360 the waste of maintaining such a large debt still isn't number one in the minds of many voters, though it should be.
00:07:00.840 And Trudeau liberals have fostered dependency, complacency, and fiscal ignorance among Canadians during their term in power.
00:07:06.840 The conservative government, or the conservative up-and-comers, need to reverse that damage.
00:07:11.740 But it's got to be done with care.
00:07:13.920 People are seeing the need to get things back in fiscal order,
00:07:16.280 but they still don't understand that they're ultimately going to have to pay all those bills.
00:07:19.560 Trudeau could conceivably campaign on unicorn power and get away with it in 2025
00:07:24.340 unless the conservatives have built a voter base of informed realists by then.
00:07:29.100 So until then, guys, don't dance on the grave of the liberal government yet.
00:07:32.960 Don't take any polls for granted.
00:07:35.280 Like it or not, the liberals are not out of the picture yet.
00:07:39.220 All right, let's see.
00:07:40.640 Let's check in and see what else is going on out there.
00:07:43.060 We got a treat today.
00:07:43.880 We got reporter Jonathan Bradley giving us the news update and letting us know what's happening out there.
00:07:48.920 How's it going, Jonathan?
00:07:49.860 It's going good, Corey.
00:07:50.600 This is my first time doing the news update, so don't be too hard on me if I mess up.
00:07:54.860 Oh, I wouldn't be hard on you, Jonathan.
00:07:56.840 At least not on camera.
00:07:59.180 Okay, well, our main story on the site right now is
00:08:02.540 Polyev says Trudeau is the Grinch who stole Christmas.
00:08:05.340 This is because Trudeau went and called a group of senators
00:08:10.020 and had them water down Bill C-234,
00:08:12.740 which would ease the carbon tax on farmers and take it off of certain aspects of that.
00:08:19.360 When it comes to that, Polyev said that he's going to ruin Trudeau's Christmas vacation.
00:08:24.640 This is because he's going to submit all these amendments to bills to try to get Trudeau to cave
00:08:30.780 on easing the carbon tax.
00:08:33.660 We have a story from our business reporter, Sean Polzer,
00:08:36.860 who has reported that the Climate Action Network,
00:08:39.600 which is a group of kooky environmental activists in Canada,
00:08:42.700 has awarded Alberta the Fossil the Day Award at COP28.
00:08:47.120 Usually the award goes to national governments.
00:08:50.080 It's gone to previous liberal and conservative governments.
00:08:53.360 But this is one of the first times that a regional government such as Alberta has received it.
00:08:59.620 Premier Smith's over there right now.
00:09:01.160 Do you think perhaps she could be convinced to go and accept this award in person?
00:09:04.360 I think that would be pretty outstanding on her part.
00:09:07.660 Well, these activists are at COP28, so I mean, maybe she can get in touch with them and accept the award.
00:09:13.040 We also have a story from our contributor, Lee Harding,
00:09:17.440 about studies finding that net zero would kill the economy.
00:09:21.100 These studies are from the Climate Economic Institute at MIT.
00:09:24.820 A little disappointed in Lee because usually I'm the one who writes the study find stories.
00:09:28.440 We have another story based in Calgary about a Calgary man who was charged with a hate crime
00:09:34.380 after a threat to an Islamic centre.
00:09:37.260 The man left a threatening voicemail to the Islamic centre of Calgary back in October.
00:09:41.860 And a hate motivation has been added to the charge.
00:09:47.600 We also have a column from Gage Harbrick about what happened to Saskatchewan surpluses,
00:09:53.460 given the Saskatchewan government's large amount of spending it's done over the years.
00:09:58.000 And in no surprise to many music fans, Taylor Swift was named the 2023 Time Magazine Person of the Year.
00:10:05.160 This is because of her Errors World Tour and the new music she's been releasing.
00:10:09.540 She's definitely created a fan group.
00:10:11.340 I mean, I was disappointed when I got Zach Bryan tickets in Edmonton a few months ago,
00:10:16.460 but Taylor Swift fans had it far worse, so I'm not too upset about that.
00:10:21.800 Yeah.
00:10:23.280 Coming up later today, I got a story I'm working on right now about Pixar saying that
00:10:28.100 three of its movies will be coming to the big screens because they were released on Disney Plus
00:10:33.760 during the lockdowns.
00:10:35.560 I got a press conference I'm going to be covering soon about flooding relief
00:10:39.140 that Mike Ellis is going to be speaking at.
00:10:42.080 And yeah, we're going to, it's a busy day in the newsroom like it usually is.
00:10:45.480 Great.
00:10:45.940 Well, thanks for bringing us all up to date there, Jonathan.
00:10:49.480 It's much appreciated.
00:10:51.000 You're always hard at hammering out those stories.
00:10:53.680 I'll let you get back to putting some more out there.
00:10:56.020 And then, yeah, I appreciate the work you're doing.
00:10:58.400 Thank you.
00:10:59.140 Great.
00:10:59.380 Thanks.
00:11:00.220 So that is our, yes, one of our main reporters there, Jonathan Bradley.
00:11:02.720 He's been here for a year.
00:11:03.580 Well, if you're a regular standard reader, you've read all sorts of Jonathan's stories
00:11:07.020 and he does a great job in there, even if we give him a hard time now and then.
00:11:11.420 He's fantastic.
00:11:12.380 And as you see, lots of stuff out there, guys, lots of stuff breaking, lots of stuff
00:11:15.720 already written.
00:11:16.420 This one, I kind of remind you, this is how and when we pay the bills.
00:11:19.140 We are subscription based.
00:11:20.500 We don't ask for tax dollars and subsidies and things such as that.
00:11:24.080 It's you guys who keep it running and if you haven't subscribed yet, guys, get on
00:11:29.480 there, westernstandard.news slash membership.
00:11:31.720 It's $9.99 a month or $100 for a year and it keeps guys like Sean Polzer, who was
00:11:37.320 mentioned earlier.
00:11:38.040 He writes excellent energy and business articles and our columnist, Nigel Hannaford, and
00:11:43.460 of course, Jonathan Bradley and myself and others going.
00:11:46.080 So I appreciate the subscriptions, guys, and yeah, keep on it.
00:11:51.100 So, yeah, you know, it's funny about the Taylor Swift thing.
00:11:52.960 I mean, talk about a phenomenon.
00:11:54.460 I mean, it's just not my kind of music, but I got no beef with it.
00:11:59.040 I mean, a lot of people just really enjoy it.
00:12:00.960 I'm just astounded when you see the amount of attention and money involved in it.
00:12:06.960 You know, I think actually as somebody to pull up as an appropriate, you know, person
00:12:10.760 of the year.
00:12:11.300 I mean, that's where a lot of the dispute comes when it comes with time, when they
00:12:13.820 choose who is, you know, what used to be the man of the year.
00:12:16.280 Now it's the person of the year.
00:12:17.500 It doesn't necessarily mean it's a good person or a person that should be emulated.
00:12:21.920 Not that I think Swift is all that terribly bad.
00:12:24.140 I know she's not a hardcore conservative, but that's fine.
00:12:26.460 She's a musician.
00:12:28.080 But, you know, as somebody who's made an impact, made a lot of news and been out there.
00:12:32.120 And I can't remember the last time in my, you know, adult life remembering seeing something
00:12:37.640 as huge and sweeping as Swift has been.
00:12:41.480 And I think she's generating more revenue than a lot of small countries are now.
00:12:44.940 So whatever, not my thing, but good on her.
00:12:47.120 Go for it.
00:12:48.180 You know, it's brought more attention to Kansas City Chiefs.
00:12:51.220 That's a downside, I guess, among things.
00:12:53.200 But all the same, I'll still forgive her that.
00:12:57.500 So yes, lots going on out there.
00:13:00.960 I'm just, before I get to my guest, I want to speak quickly too.
00:13:03.600 So it sounds like another thing on the federal front.
00:13:05.200 The Speaker of the House, the new Speaker, who's only been there nine weeks, is in the
00:13:09.440 soup.
00:13:10.680 Apparently, he was speaking at a liberal function.
00:13:13.760 Now, not to say everybody necessarily understands the role of a Speaker in the House.
00:13:18.880 It's supposed to be, and I know, they still come from a party background.
00:13:22.980 And they're going to have some partisanship.
00:13:24.740 But when you take on that role, you were supposed to, at the very least, bottle it up.
00:13:28.940 You're supposed to be as impartial as possible.
00:13:31.140 You're supposed to be, basically, the one and only non-partisan person in Parliament
00:13:36.100 or a legislature where you're at.
00:13:37.840 The only time they vote on any policies is if there's a tie.
00:13:40.500 And there will be the tie-breaking vote.
00:13:42.260 Other than that, they don't take part in debates, you know, aside from moderating them
00:13:45.940 as the Speaker.
00:13:47.140 And again, you know, it's so rare when a Speaker gets thrown out because it's an honoured
00:13:52.080 position.
00:13:53.000 We've had one recently lost, you know, over bringing in the, whether he was behind it
00:13:57.120 or not, that former Nazi from the Ukraine in the House.
00:14:00.560 And now this gentleman is, Mr. Fergus is in trouble because he was speaking at a liberal
00:14:07.000 partisan function.
00:14:07.940 I don't know if he should be chucked out for that or not, but it should be considered how
00:14:11.720 serious that position is.
00:14:13.600 And the right person needs to be put in that job.
00:14:16.960 It really needs to at least appear as non-partisan as possible.
00:14:21.460 And, you know, just to go out and start doing partisan work from that position.
00:14:24.700 You've got to remember, he makes almost $300,000 a year to get into that position.
00:14:27.800 If you want to see an example of an excellent speaker, look to Alberta, Nathan Cooper.
00:14:33.180 He lives for that position.
00:14:35.720 He's fantastic.
00:14:36.560 A pure policy geek.
00:14:38.000 He's been the Speaker for a couple of terms now, I believe.
00:14:41.560 He does excellent videos actually explaining how the legislature works.
00:14:46.140 He's shown an incredible lack of bias while he's in there.
00:14:48.680 It can be done professionally.
00:14:50.220 It can be done with, it should always be done without scandal.
00:14:53.140 Yet somehow this is showing how on the rocks and messed up the government really is federally.
00:14:57.980 They can't even get a speaker in or two speakers in a row without some sort of catastrophe
00:15:05.020 or controversy.
00:15:06.960 It's just everything Trudeau touches blows up in his face these days.
00:15:10.640 Every single one.
00:15:11.840 You've got to remember the first day of the new speaker when he was in there, Trudeau was
00:15:14.340 winking at him and sticking his tongue out in the parliament.
00:15:17.320 It was really weird.
00:15:18.100 It was a weird, well, Trudeau's kind of weird in general, but I mean, just an odd exchange
00:15:22.780 between the prime minister and the speaker.
00:15:24.480 Again, you're not supposed to be getting cozy and buddy-buddy with the speaker.
00:15:27.100 That's a person who's supposed to be in an impartial role.
00:15:30.060 And I won't be surprised if he ends up getting thrown out.
00:15:34.160 We're back into searching for another one.
00:15:36.140 If you remember the tradition of the speaker, it's they go through this charade of having
00:15:39.460 the opposition leader and the prime minister or the premier drag them across the room and
00:15:43.900 force them into the chair because it means they're supposed to set their politics aside,
00:15:47.220 which is hard for politicians.
00:15:48.780 And this new speaker apparently has had trouble doing so.
00:15:51.280 Okay, let's get on to our guest.
00:15:52.700 I see him in the lobby there.
00:15:53.620 He's been on my show before, but it's been quite a while.
00:15:56.080 It's Tim Moen, as I said, he was the leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, but he's
00:15:59.860 also, I think, well, it depends on which we want to call it more importantly or less
00:16:03.380 so, but he's been a paramedic and an EMS responder and firefighter for a long time.
00:16:07.660 And he wrote a fantastic long substack piece on healthcare reforms and some of the AHS
00:16:13.920 and how it's impacting EMS.
00:16:15.120 So thanks for joining us today, Tim.
00:16:16.580 Thanks for having me on.
00:16:17.980 Happy to talk about this.
00:16:19.420 Yeah, no, I really appreciate it because I mean, healthcare, I mean, you cover a little
00:16:23.280 of that in your piece, you know, it's that sacred cow.
00:16:26.540 People are terrified of touching it, saying anything aside from throwing more money at
00:16:31.640 the system.
00:16:32.900 EMS is one branch of a large, large system and it's still predominantly going to be managed
00:16:39.020 by AHS, I guess.
00:16:40.280 But you're writing on some of the challenges EMS has had and perhaps some of the things
00:16:45.920 that could solve it or positive things that might be coming from these efforts to reform
00:16:49.300 AHS, right?
00:16:50.780 Yeah.
00:16:51.020 Well, you're exactly right.
00:16:51.960 I mean, the only solution offered by detractors of healthcare reform that Daniel Smith's putting
00:16:57.200 forward.
00:16:58.120 And of course, the never ending cries for more money, more money, more money.
00:17:02.940 If we just had more money, finally, we could have a good health system.
00:17:05.640 Of course, there's never enough money to satisfy these people.
00:17:08.800 And in fact, there's never enough money to fix the problem.
00:17:12.940 You know, it's the first law of economics.
00:17:16.440 You know, demand is infinite and supply is scarce.
00:17:20.680 And of course, when you have government providing the supply, it's really scarce because they're
00:17:25.200 just not very good at producing services and products.
00:17:29.520 And healthcare is no different.
00:17:32.180 You know, over the past two or three years, we've seen huge staff shortages.
00:17:38.040 Certainly in EMS, I see it very clearly.
00:17:41.640 But also in the parts of the health system that I touch on a regular basis, like eMERGE
00:17:47.400 departments, we see a huge turnover of nurses and nurses fleeing the healthcare system, paramedics
00:17:54.220 fleeing the healthcare system for greener pastures or something else.
00:17:59.340 You know, and of course, it's heavily public sector unionized.
00:18:03.880 So, you know, if you're feeling stressed out at work by your healthcare bosses, why come
00:18:11.560 to work when you can get paid to stay at home on stress leave?
00:18:14.100 And that's one of the things that we saw happen, especially during the last two years in the
00:18:18.960 pandemic, when all the things that contribute to a toxic work environment were ramped up times
00:18:27.420 a hundred under the COVID bureaucracy.
00:18:31.840 You know, if you're a manager and you like to manage, I mean, the COVID pandemic was your
00:18:37.800 time to shine and new rules written every week.
00:18:40.420 It was very clear to us that we were objects of compliance, not healthcare practitioners
00:18:47.320 that with clinical experience exercising our best judgment.
00:18:52.520 And so, you know, that wears on people when you get treated like an object of compliance rather
00:18:57.800 than a clinical practitioner that is doing what's best for your patient.
00:19:01.260 Well, you start to feel dehumanized and demoralized and the system demoralizes people.
00:19:08.060 And so I certainly see that in EMS.
00:19:09.940 I certainly see that in eMERGE.
00:19:11.640 My wife was an eMERGE nurse, but during the pandemic, she was looking for every way to
00:19:18.240 get out of there because all the things that were causing her stress on the job were ramped
00:19:22.000 up times a hundred.
00:19:22.860 And she found a different position, nursing position that wasn't in that eMERGE department
00:19:29.980 stress anymore.
00:19:32.260 So, you know, I don't know if that helps.
00:19:35.000 I'm trying to remember your question, Corey, but...
00:19:37.380 It's okay.
00:19:38.840 There's a whole lot to unpack in general.
00:19:40.880 And that's why I really wanted to get you on because it is a really long piece.
00:19:43.640 And I really want to encourage people to read the whole thing because you cover a whole
00:19:46.920 lot of issues.
00:19:47.440 The morale portion is a very important one that people forget.
00:19:51.460 And it doesn't matter what profession you're in.
00:19:52.860 If your morale is in the dumpster, you're not going to do your job as well as you should
00:19:56.660 or are capable of.
00:19:58.200 But one of the things you pointed out in your piece as well was that Premier Smith basically
00:20:04.440 laid down the law on using paramedics for hallway care.
00:20:07.440 And it seems to have been successful.
00:20:08.740 It's been reduced.
00:20:09.700 Is it a bit of a shell game?
00:20:11.280 Because now I know that it was an improper use of paramedics, but it was kind of putting
00:20:15.660 a relief valve on the emergency services.
00:20:18.620 Now the nurses and doctors do have to embrace that.
00:20:20.800 And it could be transferring that stress and overworked to another department.
00:20:24.980 Well, it definitely is.
00:20:26.360 There's no doubt about that.
00:20:27.980 But that's what needs to happen.
00:20:29.660 I mean, right now what is happening is, you know, let's use EMS for an example.
00:20:35.080 AHS EMS runs directly, staffs about half the ambulances in Alberta.
00:20:41.660 The rest are done through contract providers.
00:20:44.540 There's 31 contract providers.
00:20:46.600 Some of them are private providers.
00:20:48.820 The service I work for and many of my colleagues work for is an integrated provider.
00:20:53.460 We are a municipal fire department that also does EMS.
00:20:56.460 So we have a contract with AHS to do EMS.
00:20:59.540 Now, in the work conditions in the contract environment, especially, you know, in municipal
00:21:06.360 fire departments and private ambulances are better than work conditions at AHS.
00:21:13.320 Like I said, AHS is a giant bureaucracy and necessarily treats people like they're human resources,
00:21:20.500 like they're cogs in a machine, like they're pawns.
00:21:26.040 And, you know, that results in up to at one point during the pandemic, there was, I heard,
00:21:32.480 up to 70% of full-time paramedics off at any given time on stress leave.
00:21:38.460 Now, you'll never see these numbers published.
00:21:40.900 The AHS doesn't want to make them.
00:21:42.420 What they will publish is that we hired more paramedics.
00:21:45.460 And so now staffing levels are up 11.2%.
00:21:48.280 But when only half your ambulances are manned, despite your staffing levels being at an all-time
00:21:54.100 high, it tells a different story.
00:21:57.740 And so what would happen is you'd have half the ambulances on in Edmonton that you would
00:22:02.640 normally have because these staff are just burnt out from the system.
00:22:06.720 And all the contract providers, the surrounding fire department municipality services, we would
00:22:14.640 spend most of our shift in Edmonton doing calls downtown, dealing with drug addicts and
00:22:20.380 marginalized people and all the calls that come with that big city.
00:22:26.500 But if you looked at it, the calls were getting responded to.
00:22:30.620 Yes, there were code reds where there were times where there weren't ambulances available.
00:22:33.920 But had you not had those contract providers around the metro area being sucked in, you
00:22:41.440 would have seen very quickly what a catastrophe those metro areas were in the terms of their
00:22:47.340 state of health care.
00:22:48.540 And then once you get to the hospital, yes, we were being used as hallway nurses.
00:22:53.880 That takes the load off an already stressed emerge.
00:22:58.960 So we're muddling through, you know, altogether, but we were never seeing very clearly where
00:23:05.840 the system is failing, right?
00:23:07.260 So, you know, under these new reforms, what I'm hoping is that instead of answering to AHS,
00:23:14.200 we'll answer to acute care, this new organization.
00:23:18.200 And we already know that the Alberta government is much more amenable to listening to
00:23:26.660 municipalities and their specific health care concerns and saying, listen, we want to keep
00:23:31.040 our paramedics and our ambulances in our communities, you're emptying them out.
00:23:36.720 Well, once that happens, if they listen to us, which I suspect they will, you're going to see
00:23:41.940 very clearly metro regions failing.
00:23:44.080 And that's going to force the kind of changes that need to happen in the system.
00:23:47.900 The change doesn't need to happen in Strathcona County or St. Albert or Spruce Grove or these
00:23:52.900 these bedroom communities.
00:23:54.640 The change needs to happen in Edmonton Metro.
00:23:56.900 But we don't see that yet because right now we're bailing them out by being, we'll call
00:24:01.400 it sucked into the vortex.
00:24:02.700 We're covering all the calls in there for them.
00:24:05.240 So failure needs to happen.
00:24:07.680 It's not going to be pretty, but these reforms are going to show very clearly where the points
00:24:12.040 in the system are that are failing.
00:24:13.540 And and yeah, you're right.
00:24:15.980 You know, when Daniel Smith came in and they said, OK, we're going to do mandatory 45 minute
00:24:20.880 offloads, all my colleagues kind of rolled their eyes.
00:24:24.260 Like, how many times have we seen a just try to tackle these hallway weights?
00:24:28.600 And they have.
00:24:29.180 They've done thrown ad hoc solutions that work for a couple of weeks and then they go back
00:24:35.040 to normal.
00:24:35.420 And the reason they go back to normal is that in order to make life easier for EMS or the
00:24:42.420 communities and get ambulances back out the door quickly, that means nursing staff have
00:24:46.980 to do things that they're not comfortable with.
00:24:48.760 They have to put patients in the waiting room and take on a risk of what happens if that
00:24:53.600 patient goes down in the waiting room.
00:24:55.080 They have to clear patients out of emerge quicker.
00:24:58.020 They have you know, there's all these things that have to happen.
00:25:00.360 They have to have hallway nurses.
00:25:02.560 They literally have hallway nurses in these hospitals now so that if we have a stretcher
00:25:07.200 patient who's who's got to wait for a period of time, we don't have to stay there with
00:25:12.540 them.
00:25:12.680 We put them with, you know, there's one hallway nurse looking after, you know, four to eight
00:25:16.640 stretcher patients in the back hallway.
00:25:18.940 Well, these were all things that the system could have done, but it was a hardship on the
00:25:23.680 hospital.
00:25:24.320 And so rather than placing hardship on the hospital, they put hardship on the ambulances
00:25:29.700 and the communities they serve because all these administrators, of course, come from
00:25:34.840 a hospital background.
00:25:35.900 The loudest unions are hospital based.
00:25:38.540 Uh, you know, the everything's based on the physicians and where they're at and that's
00:25:43.620 the bricks and mortar hospital.
00:25:45.080 So the EMS and the communities, uh, were the ones that suffered because of it.
00:25:49.320 But now since Danielle Smith came in, it seems like there's, there's this order that no,
00:25:55.560 you, you got, get these ambulances out the door in 45 minutes, make it happen, find a
00:25:59.280 way.
00:25:59.660 And they're finding a way.
00:26:00.800 And a lot of our patients are going to the waiting room because, you know, the other day
00:26:05.460 I draw, I had a five-year-old kid with a cough and a fever.
00:26:09.840 I don't know why his mom called an ambulance.
00:26:11.680 That's another story, but a lot of our patients aren't, it's not a life and death situation
00:26:16.060 and they can sit in the waiting room and it sucks that you're going to have to sit there
00:26:18.840 for 14 hours.
00:26:19.660 And I know you thought if you called 9-1-1, you'd get seen faster, but we have a system
00:26:24.960 of healthcare lines and you've got your spot in line now.
00:26:28.480 You're going to have to wait.
00:26:29.560 But, uh, I hope that kind of answers the question.
00:26:32.280 It does.
00:26:32.540 I mean, it means there's still a problem to be dealt with within the hospitals, but
00:26:35.540 at least they've taken away one stop cap that they shouldn't have been using in the first
00:26:39.060 place, which is EMS workers.
00:26:41.520 Um, as, as one of the commenters, Jim, uh, points out as, you know, as long as Canadians
00:26:44.880 can walk into any healthcare facility without a dime in their pocket, the system's always
00:26:47.800 going to be broken and overwhelmed.
00:26:49.160 It's similar to what you said before, you know, there's infinite demand, but we've got
00:26:52.740 limited, uh, services, you know, credit where due.
00:26:56.080 I'm not a big union fan in general, but the union for the EMS workers was doing great with
00:27:00.400 putting it out there, showing, uh, maps with, uh, showing the, the, the, the ambulances
00:27:04.640 responding from distant locations.
00:27:06.400 We'd see them coming from Banff to a Calgary call or I live in Prittis and I could see that
00:27:10.940 my ambulance in my little community spends probably 80% of its time in the city of Calgary.
00:27:17.580 It's actually not very often that it's based in Prittis.
00:27:21.040 That's another problem now that still has to be dealt with.
00:27:23.320 Right.
00:27:23.940 Right.
00:27:24.280 Well, exactly right.
00:27:25.900 And, and so HSAA is the union that, uh, covers paramedics that are employed with AHS.
00:27:32.200 Um, and, and of course they're pointing out the problems in the system to get more money
00:27:36.780 and resources, right?
00:27:37.700 That that's what their primary thing is, but yes, it's good to know there's a problem out
00:27:42.120 there.
00:27:42.680 They, they say the answer is more money.
00:27:45.520 I'd say not so fast.
00:27:47.280 Um, when that, that money is getting used to pay for staff that are only there half the
00:27:53.360 time because of their, the stress, the system places on them.
00:27:56.480 I'm not sure that's money well spent.
00:27:58.460 Meanwhile, my union is, I think doing an excellent job.
00:28:02.120 Our, our, uh, you know, this is a case where our interests align across the board.
00:28:09.260 I think Albertans, uh, me as, as a, a firefighter paramedic there's as a union, trying to get
00:28:15.620 more membership and more, uh, clout, um, they all aligned and, and our union, the, uh,
00:28:21.440 international association of firefighters or the Alberta, uh, I can't remember.
00:28:25.220 There's a provincial body that covers municipal fire departments with the IAFF, but they,
00:28:31.020 we've been demanding that we get more local control that our, uh, practitioners state,
00:28:38.560 get to stay within their communities rather than get continually redeployed and pulled
00:28:42.180 out of their communities to cover, uh, other communities that aren't ours.
00:28:46.600 And, um, they've been lobbying for this for quite a while.
00:28:50.140 And so they point out the same system issues as HSAA, but they have a different prescription
00:28:57.200 and they have a subscription that I think you and I would more aptly agree with, which
00:29:01.220 is decentralized things.
00:29:02.260 Just give us the power back.
00:29:03.460 Things were better when the municipality controlled these resources.
00:29:07.200 And what you, when you just release the chains, like we're not asking for more money here,
00:29:12.520 just take the, take the chains off us and let us do our thing.
00:29:15.960 You know, I was a project manager for a year on a, a locally initiated program called the
00:29:22.740 community care paramedic program that our municipality wanted it.
00:29:26.540 And, uh, the municipality actually got the idea from the health minister at the time who
00:29:31.740 was an NDP health minister who said, Hey, what do you think of community paramedics?
00:29:35.100 And we love the idea.
00:29:36.960 And, and it was a solution to the problem we were facing, which is we're, we're dealing
00:29:41.720 with a lot of urgent care patients.
00:29:43.260 They didn't need to go to an emerge, but they weren't mobile enough to go to their family
00:29:46.680 doctor.
00:29:47.000 They needed care, but they needed care in their home before it became an emergent problem.
00:29:52.180 And community care paramedics would go into homes and they would treat people right in place.
00:29:57.960 And they would get on the phone to the primary care physician, run diagnostic tests, draw blood,
00:30:02.900 facilitate prescriptions, make sure that that cough in a COPD patient didn't develop into
00:30:09.340 a life-threatening pneumonia in a week.
00:30:11.600 And, uh, we were well on our way to getting this program implemented.
00:30:15.180 We had all the stakeholders.
00:30:16.540 I had done a year's worth of work, pulling data, ensuring we're getting, uh, we're determining
00:30:21.760 exactly where the need was in our community, but we just could not get permission from AHS.
00:30:26.620 Now the Alberta health ministry, Alberta health, the ministry was all in favor of this and they
00:30:32.180 were, they were pushing for us.
00:30:34.180 Unfortunately, the champion we had in the ministry went off on a maternity leave at a
00:30:38.900 key time and we couldn't, uh, get them to, to force AHS to play ball with us.
00:30:44.280 AHS ultimately wouldn't approve the prod project.
00:30:47.240 And once you understand, uh, the system and you understand what, how, how those managers
00:30:53.720 minds work, you probably would be sympathetic to them because they are charged with, uh,
00:30:59.800 an impossible task.
00:31:00.980 They have to not only provide healthcare for all Albertans in an equitable way and distribute
00:31:07.520 resources and treat all Alberta as one giant homogenous blob.
00:31:11.860 Um, they not only have to provide services, but they also have to deal with contract providers
00:31:16.400 and all this stuff.
00:31:17.400 Now, wouldn't you rather just not have to deal with figuring out how much money you can
00:31:22.160 send Strathcona County and how am I going to oversee this and how am I going to deal with
00:31:26.920 all the headaches that that causes?
00:31:29.080 I'm ultimately responsible for this.
00:31:30.800 I don't know what they're going to do.
00:31:32.080 I don't know these people.
00:31:33.080 They're not my employees.
00:31:35.080 Uh, we'll just look at, you know what, we're just going to do this ourselves down the road.
00:31:39.840 Probably won't be as good as what you guys will do, but so you can kind of understand
00:31:43.620 the mindset of, of AHS, uh, and where they come, come from, but you know, now this is
00:31:50.000 changing because the, the, these reforms are taking a lot of the, the powers away from
00:31:55.500 AHS and this should actually be, AHS should be applauding this.
00:32:00.860 They should be thankful for this because they don't have to now do all these things.
00:32:06.060 They can just focus on providing service.
00:32:07.960 They don't have to focus on distributing funds.
00:32:09.920 They don't have to focus on, uh, you know, dealing with contractors and, and they can
00:32:15.380 just focus on one thing.
00:32:16.380 And, and you can let us in our municipality talk to acute care, the government organization
00:32:22.220 and, you know, hopefully get these kinds of programs approved without have AHS roadblock
00:32:28.940 us all the time.
00:32:29.980 Yeah.
00:32:30.280 We'll give them one, one less ball to juggle.
00:32:32.180 And well, premier Smith does seem to be the most receptive premier we've seen in a long
00:32:35.960 time, ready to take on some of those tough, uh, monolithic bureaucracies.
00:32:41.020 So hopefully that, that carries on with the, the, the path she started, uh, I'll kind of
00:32:45.260 pivot away from there is something you didn't talk a lot about actually in your piece, but
00:32:48.380 a couple of people have mentioned that in the questions, it's a different factor today.
00:32:51.580 Uh, you know, wondering what percentage of the EMS calls are dealing with, uh, overdoses
00:32:55.760 and drug addiction.
00:32:56.420 I mean, the, the opioid issue is, is huge and growing.
00:32:59.200 I mean, addiction has always been there.
00:33:00.640 Overdoses have always been there, but nothing, nothing like we see today.
00:33:04.020 And that's gotta be taking a large part of, of emergency resources on all levels.
00:33:08.220 It's a huge, huge part of our, our call volume for sure.
00:33:12.840 Um, you know, I've seen patients, I've, I've gone to overdoses, uh, where I'm resuscitating
00:33:19.480 someone who's on the brink of death.
00:33:21.320 Meanwhile, uh, there's someone else about to inject themselves with the same, uh, the
00:33:27.200 same batch of, of fentanyl that this person overdosed on and you'll warn them and you see
00:33:33.080 this person overdosed on that same stuff, uh, and they, they push it anyways.
00:33:38.680 And then now you're pushing Narcan on that person.
00:33:41.440 It's, it's just, uh, it's an unending, uh, onslaught of, of overdoses.
00:33:48.340 Uh, it's, it is insane.
00:33:50.040 And, and, um, you know, I, I wonder, uh, I'm very curious about Daniel Smith's solution
00:33:56.780 to this.
00:33:57.160 I mean, the idea of being able to round these people up and force them into, um, some kind
00:34:03.160 of treatment, I mean, that might be what's necessary here.
00:34:06.340 I don't know, but, uh, certainly not enabling them, um, it would be a good start.
00:34:12.560 Right.
00:34:12.840 And, and actually enforcing laws about, uh, you know, public trespassing, intoxication,
00:34:20.820 littering, uh, pooping on the streets, putting up tents.
00:34:24.220 I mean, you know, some pressure needs to be put on these people rather than simply, here's
00:34:29.080 a nice warm place, uh, for you to crash.
00:34:31.420 And here's, uh, a ton of safety nets for you paid for by the taxpayers so that you can feel
00:34:36.700 free to do drugs, dangerous drugs out in the open, um, without any, any consequences.
00:34:43.220 You don't have to bear any of the responsibility of doing drugs.
00:34:46.760 We'll take that on.
00:34:47.960 Cause we're nice, good hearted people while at some point, uh, responsibility has to be
00:34:52.960 put back on these people and they have to take some accountability how to do that.
00:34:57.060 That's a good question.
00:34:58.600 Yeah.
00:34:58.880 Well, I've had other guests and that's another whole giant complicated area, but I mean, it's
00:35:02.600 a real pressure when, when you're responding to an overdose, you could be missing out then
00:35:06.920 on somebody else who's having a heart attack or a car accident that happened.
00:35:10.040 I mean, that the resources are limited.
00:35:11.460 So if we could try and figure out any ways that we can bring pressures off the, you know,
00:35:15.700 that's one of them to, to address, but that'd be a whole separate thing.
00:35:18.580 But, but Premier Smith again is looking to take a whole new approach with that.
00:35:21.540 And I'm certainly hoping for the best with it.
00:35:23.400 Uh, but yeah, it is a big and overwhelming issue, but it's important to everybody.
00:35:27.900 I mean, uh, people don't think about EMS sometimes until they actually need it and realize that suddenly
00:35:32.480 it's the most important service in their life and you want it as close and as effective
00:35:37.420 and ready as possible.
00:35:38.800 So to, to get the whole picture before I let you go, you know, where can we get your
00:35:42.920 article on that and, and see further things that you're going to write and talk about
00:35:46.100 Tim?
00:35:46.760 Sure.
00:35:47.260 Well, you can follow my podcast, the Tim Moen show on wherever you like to consume podcasts,
00:35:52.860 Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes.
00:35:56.220 Um, and you can go to my sub stack.
00:35:58.580 Uh, that would, that would be a great way to follow up.
00:36:00.780 I don't write very often, but when I do write, I usually have a lot to say and it's usually,
00:36:04.920 um, pretty well thought out.
00:36:06.780 So you can go to my sub stack.
00:36:08.700 It's, uh, Tim Moen, uh, I believe on sub stack.
00:36:11.700 You can find it there.
00:36:13.140 Yeah.
00:36:13.520 It's, uh, timmoen.substack.com.
00:36:16.200 So, uh, great.
00:36:17.460 Well, thanks for joining us today, Tim.
00:36:18.960 It's always great to get you on.
00:36:20.180 It's, uh, it's part of our problems.
00:36:21.780 Our segments are too short to cover something that big, but it gives people a taste of what
00:36:25.260 you've been writing about and, and, uh, a path to, to find out more.
00:36:28.200 So I really appreciate the work you've done, uh, uh, out on the field and, and, uh, on,
00:36:32.340 on social media so we can see what's going on out there.
00:36:35.160 Thanks, Corey.
00:36:35.780 Appreciate the opportunity.
00:36:37.120 All right.
00:36:37.340 Thanks, Tim.
00:36:37.820 Hope we'll talk again soon.
00:36:39.020 So, yes, that was Tim Moen.
00:36:40.320 And just that reminder, you can look it up for the podcast, uh, Tim Moen and all those
00:36:43.800 sites.
00:36:44.060 And, uh, yeah, timmoen.substack.com.
00:36:46.800 As you can hear from him, he's got, you know, some solution-based thinking.
00:36:50.020 He just wants to make things better.
00:36:53.140 And, uh, we see some of the people, uh, commenting and yes, uh, you know, Paradoxie
00:36:57.500 saying had to go to court for a mandated mental health assessment of a family member.
00:37:01.520 Uh, and, uh, Wilder was saying the opioid epidemic's gotten to the point.
00:37:05.680 It's almost unsolvable without, you know, sort of with stepping on people's rights.
00:37:09.900 Uh, I think perhaps it was meant without, but yeah, what do we do?
00:37:13.980 What do we do?
00:37:14.800 You know, enablement is failing.
00:37:17.020 It's failing.
00:37:17.880 I mean, Tim pointed that out, you know, literally you can't reason with an addict.
00:37:22.040 You can be resuscitating one right here and here's the, the, the person next to them
00:37:26.200 taking the same drug when they just saw what happened to their friend.
00:37:29.540 They're not, they're beyond reason.
00:37:31.780 And when you were speaking about mental health and going to courts, you see, we don't want
00:37:34.900 to put, we never want to incarcerate somebody lightly.
00:37:39.180 It's always a last resort, whether it's a mental health issue or an addiction issue, both
00:37:43.800 of which are very closely related.
00:37:45.380 A lot of people who find themselves seriously addicted had underlying mental health issues, perhaps
00:37:50.980 that were untreated in the first place that led to that.
00:37:53.900 And we want people to have their liberty whenever possible, but there are, every province has
00:38:00.580 an act.
00:38:01.060 They'll have a mental health act and there'll be a condition for when you can hold somebody
00:38:06.080 against their will, if, and when they will harm, they feel that they will harm somebody
00:38:11.660 or themselves.
00:38:12.620 And you can't think of, of, you know, if somebody is heavily addicted to fentanyl living on the
00:38:19.100 streets, because we get those discussions, people saying, well, you can't force rehab
00:38:23.020 on somebody.
00:38:23.720 It never works.
00:38:24.140 Well, it's not true.
00:38:24.880 It's not that it never works, but it doesn't work as well as when somebody brought themselves
00:38:29.020 in willingly.
00:38:29.740 Absolutely not.
00:38:30.540 No.
00:38:31.220 But you're at your last resort by then.
00:38:34.420 We're not, you know, Premier Smith and others, they're not talking about going in and grabbing
00:38:38.700 people when they're, they're addicted, but perhaps still functional.
00:38:41.600 They're talking about once they've hit the streets, once they've hit bottom, when they're
00:38:44.840 sleeping behind the dumpsters, when they're freezing to death, we haven't had a hard, cold
00:38:48.940 snap yet.
00:38:50.140 And we will.
00:38:51.540 And there's going to be a lot of amputations.
00:38:53.020 There's going to be a lot of deaths.
00:38:53.820 You see them out there.
00:38:54.580 People who go downtown, people who go on transit, you see them, they call it nodding.
00:38:57.520 They take the fentanyl and they just nod off and pass out.
00:39:00.040 Well, they'll do that when it's minus 30 and they will die.
00:39:03.400 So as Jordan said, desperate times call for desperate measures.
00:39:08.300 If we have to intervene and pick them up and force them into a facility, I think we should.
00:39:17.480 Enablement doesn't work.
00:39:18.740 Giving them more drugs doesn't work.
00:39:21.560 Or the ridiculousness of that they've even had in Toronto labeled crack and meth pipes.
00:39:26.160 Come on, guys.
00:39:27.420 As Tim was pointing out with EMS, I mean, part of it's the whole environment of it.
00:39:30.760 The complete lack of personal responsibility, that feeling we're given, the disorder, letting
00:39:35.440 them take over the streets, letting them own them, letting them own transit.
00:39:39.160 In Edmonton, I don't know if it's addiction related, but it shows some of that disorder
00:39:42.380 and what's going on.
00:39:43.000 Because of course, it was the Edmonton Coliseum Stadium.
00:39:45.220 I went touring that just a couple of weeks ago.
00:39:46.740 I talked about that here.
00:39:48.440 And two 12-year-old girls beat a disabled woman nearly to death.
00:39:52.900 But you're in this dystopian, lawless environment full of graffiti and discarded drug waste and
00:40:00.460 passed out people and people tripping balls and going nuts.
00:40:04.620 Well, it's not doing any favors.
00:40:06.800 But getting back to the whole works of it, yeah, with what Tim was talking about and our
00:40:10.980 healthcare, our emergency services, because we don't want emergency services to stop responding
00:40:15.120 to overdose calls.
00:40:15.980 Those are our kids, our cousins, our spouses, you name it.
00:40:21.200 These are people out there.
00:40:22.840 They might be on their last leg.
00:40:24.140 They're addicted.
00:40:24.600 They're having big problems.
00:40:25.740 But we do want to help them.
00:40:28.820 We also want to help everybody else.
00:40:31.220 So getting back to what Tim wrote about, though, healthcare, it's the biggest issue on the mind
00:40:35.360 of Canadians.
00:40:35.760 Whereas I wrote those polls showed actually, I think healthcare was second when you're
00:40:39.140 talking in the listings of it.
00:40:40.720 But when you get provincial polls, because it's provincial jurisdiction, it's almost always
00:40:45.560 healthcare on top.
00:40:49.000 So it's great.
00:40:50.620 Premier Smith, and it's interesting when it's an order from above saying, look, get those
00:40:56.080 ambulances back on the road.
00:40:57.620 No more hallway care.
00:40:59.720 As Tim said, you usually expect, well, they'll roll their eyes and nothing but change.
00:41:02.840 But no, it worked.
00:41:04.080 They did start taking them in.
00:41:06.400 They've got a lot more ambulances on the street.
00:41:07.760 But that also tells us there was some inefficiency going on in the hospital in the first place.
00:41:11.540 There's room to move.
00:41:13.100 I mean, it doesn't mean there's a lot of room.
00:41:15.060 The hospitals are overworked, too.
00:41:16.220 I won't go into it, but I've been recently going to the foothills quite regularly to see
00:41:21.400 somebody.
00:41:21.880 And yeah, that place is packed.
00:41:24.000 And those people are running hard in there.
00:41:26.800 And we don't have much more.
00:41:28.900 We were hearing on the news, I think Montreal got overwhelmed.
00:41:31.540 Fort McMurray shut down its emergency for some hours because they didn't have nurses available.
00:41:35.960 But we're spending, spending, spending.
00:41:38.880 So, I mean, spending isn't the solution.
00:41:41.640 We've got, we're one of the highest spending health care systems on the planet.
00:41:45.700 And we've got some of the worst outcomes on the planet when it comes for waiting times,
00:41:50.300 access, and ability.
00:41:52.320 Once people get in, we've got some fantastic health care professionals, great doctors,
00:41:56.880 great nurses, everything from the pharmacist to physiotherapist.
00:41:59.920 It's a big machine with a lot of nuts and bolts.
00:42:02.260 Even the people who are cooking the food or maintaining the place.
00:42:04.880 But we're not utilizing it to its best ability because we're afraid of change.
00:42:12.460 People get their backs up whenever anybody talks about reform.
00:42:16.160 But we've got to.
00:42:17.600 And it's good to hear somebody like Tim come from the front line, the literal one.
00:42:21.740 Like I said, he's on the ground.
00:42:23.360 He has to get up in the morning or his night shift or whatever it might be,
00:42:26.240 get into that ambulance and see what's happening directly in the system right there
00:42:29.980 from when somebody's injured or has a, you know, some sort of condition or something
00:42:34.060 has happened to the point of when they're at a health care facility.
00:42:37.440 And there's still a whole lot downstream that needs to be worked on.
00:42:40.840 But it's good to see some efforts going to be made in Alberta.
00:42:45.040 And we've got to stand up and support the efforts for reform because this is where the
00:42:53.640 biggest pushback is going to come.
00:42:55.160 This is where the unions and Rachel Notley are going to think they've found the wedge
00:43:00.280 issue to take over Alberta again.
00:43:02.940 And the unions and the Rachel Notleys and Gil McGowans of the rest of the provinces
00:43:07.440 across Canada are going to want to do the same things.
00:43:10.440 Just so people know who are from out of province.
00:43:12.200 Gil McGowan is the head of the Alberta Federation of Labor.
00:43:14.220 He's a lunatic.
00:43:14.780 And he also has a guaranteed seat on the NDP provincial executive because that's the way
00:43:19.060 their socialist party is structured.
00:43:20.960 So they want to scare people.
00:43:23.780 They want to say that your health care is going to be ruined.
00:43:26.700 They want to say that, you know, you're going to have to pay with a credit card to get any
00:43:30.480 care.
00:43:30.940 And they're going to say all of that stuff.
00:43:32.220 They're going to do all that fear mongering.
00:43:33.580 And they're going to say, or one of their favorites, you want to Americanize the system.
00:43:37.860 No, no.
00:43:39.020 Maybe Swedenize or Irelandize or, you know, whatever.
00:43:42.260 Because we've got dozens and dozens of countries with universal systems, which means everybody's
00:43:47.220 covered.
00:43:47.980 Nobody gets turned away.
00:43:49.980 But yes, yes, I'm going to say it.
00:43:52.220 The P word, private.
00:43:54.140 There's going to be more private involvement.
00:43:56.700 I mean, right now she's just working on breaking up the bureaucracy.
00:43:59.680 And I think that's a step one.
00:44:01.400 It was this giant, bloated Alberta Health Services bureaucracy, intractable, difficult
00:44:07.680 to move things, difficult to get things done.
00:44:09.880 And Tim even said, you know, you can feel a bit sympathetic.
00:44:12.640 They've got a big task that are put ahead of them.
00:44:15.160 And, you know, here you go, get this done.
00:44:17.760 And yet you're limited in what you can actually do to do it.
00:44:20.100 So with it being split up, perhaps we'll see more creativity, more efficiency.
00:44:23.860 There are things that can be found before we get to the point of privatizing some services
00:44:29.240 and such.
00:44:30.520 But eventually that is what we're going to have to do.
00:44:32.880 You know, I'm looking forward to a lot more of what, because you see, there's other
00:44:36.060 premiers, you know, there's other healthcare leaders.
00:44:37.880 There's people across the country, they've always been too scared to try what Premier
00:44:42.120 Smith's trying.
00:44:42.920 They want to try it.
00:44:43.620 They want to fix their, because every province has the same problem.
00:44:46.460 NDP provinces, liberal provinces, conservative provinces, it doesn't matter.
00:44:49.280 They're all overwhelmed because Canada's system sucks.
00:44:52.440 You may as well say it outright, it sucks.
00:44:54.640 So they're letting her put her neck out.
00:44:57.200 And if what Smith does works, they will follow.
00:45:00.560 That's part of why the unions are terrified too.
00:45:02.820 They do not want it to work.
00:45:04.300 There's one of my fears, is union activists sabotaging the reforms to make sure they don't
00:45:09.120 work.
00:45:09.960 And that's part of why she has to break up, as Paradox is saying, to break up that big,
00:45:14.480 giant, ugly bureaucracy, confuse them, decentralize their leadership, take away their ability to
00:45:20.180 keep dragging their feet and slow rolling on reforms and changes.
00:45:24.860 She's doing things more strategically than people give her credit for.
00:45:28.240 And I really think it's going to pay off.
00:45:30.220 But of course, it's going to take a while.
00:45:31.760 These things don't happen fast.
00:45:33.200 It was interesting to see those EMS times change as quickly as they did, though.
00:45:36.700 And changing some of that decentralization as well.
00:45:40.580 I like what Tim talked about, right?
00:45:42.140 What he was trying to set up.
00:45:43.320 He's talking about getting communities to have community care people who could even, they're
00:45:46.240 trained people, but come into your home because you don't necessarily need a ride to the
00:45:51.420 hospital.
00:45:51.900 If you're a senior and your heart is racing, but it turns out that maybe just some aspirin
00:45:58.080 and a little bit of other things could calm you down.
00:45:59.820 You didn't actually have a full cardiac episode.
00:46:02.140 You don't need to go to the hospital.
00:46:04.320 Great.
00:46:05.140 And if somebody shows up and they say, whoa, this is something serious.
00:46:07.400 We will call the truck, get you out there.
00:46:09.480 Fine.
00:46:09.840 It speeds it up for everybody.
00:46:12.040 Likewise, with the nurse practitioners, one of the things that Daniel Smith was talking about,
00:46:15.720 nurse practitioners getting out there, taking over some of that primary care, because
00:46:19.760 there's a whole lot of things going on we don't need a full out doctor to do.
00:46:23.740 But our system is structured where you always have to go to the doctor.
00:46:27.880 When your kid has the sniffles, you don't necessarily need to see a doctor.
00:46:31.380 If you've got a minor sprain, I mean, countless, countless relatively small injuries or less
00:46:38.240 dangerous things, or they might develop into others.
00:46:40.460 Nurse practitioners are still professionals.
00:46:42.080 They can say, whoa, no, I'm not taking care of that lump, but I will refer you to the person
00:46:46.180 who should.
00:46:46.660 And again, it takes pressure off that system because we're not using it well.
00:46:50.520 We're not using it properly right now.
00:46:52.240 And everybody's suffering for it, despite the amount we're spending.
00:46:55.920 So yeah, let's hear from more people like Tim.
00:46:58.540 Let's see more efforts from people like Premier Smith.
00:47:01.900 And I think, you know, Alberta's system can be reformed and fixed up.
00:47:04.980 And it can be an example to show for the rest of the country, too, that we can change the
00:47:09.420 system and fix things up for everybody.
00:47:11.580 Okay, so that leaves it on kind of a positive note.
00:47:13.260 You know, I talked about the risks of Justin Trudeau managing to get his butt reelected
00:47:17.780 in Canada due to a poorly informed electorate.
00:47:21.440 But I'll finish it up, like I said, saying, hey, but we've got some positive things happening,
00:47:25.540 some people trying to do some good things and with some courage out there.
00:47:31.020 And hopefully we see it successful and emulated elsewhere.
00:47:35.120 So thank you all, guys, for tuning in today.
00:47:37.260 Don't forget, go to thewesternstandard.news slash membership.
00:47:40.520 Get a membership.
00:47:41.180 See all of the stories.
00:47:42.020 See all the columns, my columns, Nigel's columns, the rest of this stuff.
00:47:46.440 And tune in a little later.
00:47:47.600 The pipeline will be on.
00:47:48.760 We'll have our panel talking about a number of issues.
00:47:50.980 And be sure to come back next week at this time.
00:47:53.000 And we'll do this all over again with a new guest and a whole new bunch of things to discuss.
00:47:57.080 Thanks.
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