Dr. Kelly Sundberg, a criminologist at Mount Royal University, joins the show to talk about immigration, crime, and where conservative celebrities stand on the political spectrum. He also talks about the recent celebrity endorsement of Kamala Harris by Taylor Swift and why it could have a big impact on the 2020 election.
00:00:00.000Good day. Welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. We're getting into fall now. The parliamentary
00:00:11.180session has begun. Crazy world events are happening. The doldrums of summer are over.
00:00:17.600Not that we ever had a shortage of things for me to rant and rave and go on and report about,
00:00:21.540but it gets busier in winter. Everybody kind of tunes out for the summer and try and enjoy
00:00:25.720life for a little. And now it's back to that serious, serious world. And we got some serious
00:00:30.020stuff going on, yet there's comical spins going on at the same time. So yeah, we'll be covering a lot
00:00:34.740today. I got a guest coming on, Dr. Kelly Sundberg. He's from Mount Royal University. He's a criminologist.
00:00:40.140We're going to talk about immigration and crime levels. Yeah, it's quite a combination to cover
00:00:45.860and dig into, but you know, we don't hear about that challenge that comes with many, many immigration
00:00:50.080based challenges. That's another one of the ones and how are we dealing with social disorder and
00:00:54.580other things, whether it's, you know, immigrants being victims of crime or, you know, committing
00:00:59.760crimes. We've got a lot to cover. So as I see Mavis checking in and others, who's that? Mr. Stanley.
00:01:06.520Yes, this is a live show for many watching. So hey, use that comment, scroll, send those comments
00:01:11.320my way, ask questions of the guests, things like that. I appreciate it. I don't necessarily read
00:01:16.160them all out, but I do see them and it lets me know there's somebody out there listening beyond
00:01:20.060just my mom. Good to see you there too, Paradoxy. So let's get on to a kind of a general subject I
00:01:26.040want to cover, but it got me going a bit and it's about conservatives in general and where
00:01:29.800they stand with things. So usually celebrity endorsements in elections, you know, they're
00:01:33.360not much of consequence and they're disregarded with by most people. The case though with Taylor
00:01:38.520Swift's endorsement with Kamala Harris is something different. I mean, Taylor Swift has hit a level
00:01:43.340of stardom that's unprecedented in the amount of revenue she has. And of course, even more
00:01:49.900importantly, in her fan loyalty. I mean, the self-styled Swifties who follow her, they're
00:01:55.460legion and they follow her with a cult-like loyalty. Swift's endorsement of Harris won't change many
00:02:00.860votes among those who've already made up their minds where they're going to make their mark in
00:02:04.080the ballot, but it could bring out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to vote who
00:02:08.000would have stayed at home otherwise. Those kinds of numbers can swing an election. I mean, we wish
00:02:14.680people were more moved by policies than herd mentality, but that's not always the case. With
00:02:19.060left-leaning people dominating the narrative from public figures, the public can start to feel
00:02:24.920inclined to drift towards what they feel is a majority view, even if it really isn't the majority
00:02:29.400view, just the ones with the big pulpits. That's why lawn signs are such a priority for political
00:02:34.240campaigns. It's not that candidates need people to recognize their name so much as they want to create
00:02:37.700the impression that they're enjoying popular support. If a cul-de-sac is dominated with signs
00:02:42.860from one particular candidate, folks can be inclined to go with the flow and join their
00:02:46.920neighbors and vote that way. There are many prominent people who are conservatives, you just
00:02:51.100don't hear from them very often. The best way to tell if an actor in Hollywood, because there are a lot
00:02:55.440of conservatives in Hollywood, but the way to tell if they're conservative is if you don't know what
00:02:59.580their political leanings are. They keep it to themselves because it'll greatly reduce their casting
00:03:03.660opportunities if they break ranks. The leftist actors never shut the hell up about it. Think of
00:03:08.620it like vegans. I mean, vegans, they're a tiny minority, but they sure aren't a quiet one. People
00:03:13.680with normal dietary habits don't feel compelled to announce it to the world at every opportunity.
00:03:19.480Vegans, though, you can't get through more than five minutes with one before they find a way to slip
00:03:23.920their veganism into a conversation. And if you looked at it only that way, you'd think vegans must be the
00:03:28.800majority in the world if you measure it by who brings it up and who doesn't. Conservatives win
00:03:33.440when they just come out and be conservative. And let's look at another example, the recent release
00:03:38.360of the movie Reagan. Actors Dennis Quaid and Jon Voight are among the few outspoken conservatives in
00:03:43.580Hollywood, and they happily took parts in the movie, celebrating one of the greatest presidents of
00:03:47.660all time. Now, despite little to no hype from conventional media, the movie had a fantastic opening
00:03:53.440weekend. Citizens were eager to watch it. So then the critics came out, and they panned the film.
00:03:58.800And this is where things become more telling. There's a popular website for those who might
00:04:01.960not be familiar. They're called Rotten Tomatoes. It aggregates film ratings, and it has two types
00:04:05.520of ratings. The ratings from the critics and the ratings from the audiences. Reagan got positive
00:04:10.460reviews from 21% of the critics. Terrible. The movie got an incredible 98% positive review,
00:04:17.700though, from audiences. Yes, the people actually watching it loved it. The critics are trying their
00:04:22.120worst or their best to make it look terrible. They couldn't convince people, though, that a fantastic
00:04:27.000movie is a bad one. The critics are part of the establishment, and the establishment in our culture
00:04:31.220roars, swings left. They're in the fringe, though, and we should make a note of that. Look a little
00:04:36.300closer to home here. The trajectory of Ralph Klein. He was one of the most popular premiers of all time
00:04:41.200in Canada during his time in office. The establishment relentlessly attacked Klein. Pundits assured us he was
00:04:46.780committing suicide politically when he told the unions to go to hell and shrunk government. Klein then won a
00:04:52.360bigger majority. Some critics howled when he continued to cut the budgets, and Klein wanted
00:04:56.700an even larger majority. The only time when Klein started to lose support was when he started getting
00:05:01.520tired and throwing money at problems rather than standing up for taxpayers. That's when he was
00:05:06.000encouraged to go to pasture by his own party. You know, I've heard so many times when I have candid
00:05:10.680conversations with business leaders, politicians, and others saying, I wish I could have said that when
00:05:15.860they're talking about something I said on X or something I wrote in a column. Well, guess what?
00:05:20.220They can say that. In fact, they must say that. What's that? Pretty much anything unapologetically
00:05:26.660conservative, though they don't have to be as abrasive as I am about it. In staying silent,
00:05:31.600or quietly speaking of conservative principles as if they're something to be ashamed of,
00:05:35.200prominent conservatives are allowing a minority of leftists to own public discourse. When conservatives
00:05:40.760dodge questions on conservative stances, it makes them look sneaky and implies there's something wrong
00:05:45.940with their stance. Call for small government guys. Call out the unions. Don't shy away from the need
00:05:51.680to cut spending and lay off useless bureaucrats. Don't be afraid to say we can't handle the current
00:05:57.640volume of immigrants. Point out the utter failure of the Indian Act and the reserve system. Try this
00:06:02.700one. Call a man a man and a woman a woman. Yeah, crazy, isn't it? It's common sense principles,
00:06:08.600and when conservatives own them, the voters reward it. Come out of the closet and be who you are,
00:06:13.460a conservative. You'll feel so much better being yourself in the open without shame or apologies,
00:06:19.760and that's how, guys, we can swing the needle from the false discourse that makes it sound like that
00:06:25.540we're all left-leaning. We aren't. It's just a minority of loud leftists. That's what's got me
00:06:30.400going today there, guys. Uh, whoo! Mr. Stanley's saying, non-drinkers are the same as vegans. Just gotta
00:06:37.180boast. Okay, fair enough. I think I bring up quite often my, uh, dry status, too. It's been over five
00:06:42.720years. Hey, I like to pat myself on the back about it. I guess vegans like to pat themselves on the
00:06:46.220back, too. Similar sort of analogy and a fair one to point out, and that's fine, but I think, I like
00:06:51.240to think, at least, uh, former drunks are still less annoying than bloody vegans can be, though,
00:06:57.040I mean, again, it's variable. All right, let's talk about something. I, I, I said there was something
00:07:00.340serious that happened, yet it's, it's comical. People have probably been watching it, and I'm gonna give
00:07:04.600the back story, though. I mean, it's amazing news going on in Israel, the Middle East, and, and Israel's,
00:07:10.860well, Israel hasn't taken credit for it yet, but somebody really took a beating to Hezbollah
00:07:15.880through pagers. So let me give, explain how this all kind of worked. Uh, Israel has been at war with
00:07:22.600Hezbollah for years. Hezbollah launches thousands, over years, thousands of rockets, and, and spawns
00:07:29.000terrorist attacks against Israel, launching those rockets into residential areas. I mean, they're just
00:07:33.120a pest, uh, a dangerous, terrible terrorist pest sitting within Lebanon and attacking Israel from
00:07:39.840outside. Now, a lot of them had realized, because they aren't terribly sharp, terrorists typically
00:07:45.060aren't that well that bright, but they did. Somebody, one of them realized, whoa, we keep getting
00:07:50.240vaporized, and they seem to know where we are all the time. Yes, they figured out digital cell phones
00:07:54.700gave a location of where the terrorists were, Israel was tracking it, and wiping them out. So,
00:08:00.620one of them had a brainstorm, said, let's go analog. This way they can't track our locations,
00:08:04.860we will communicate through pagers. Old school technology pagers. So they went out looking,
00:08:10.780and they found a source for pagers, and they got thousands of pagers. So all the little Hezbollah
00:08:15.060buddies could chatter with each other and do their terrorist planning through pagers. They wouldn't
00:08:19.720have their locations tracked. But Israel, probably, I don't know who else would have done it, caught wind
00:08:26.940of it, figured it out, somehow intercepted those pagers, and put a little bit of explosive in every one of
00:08:33.020them. And then when the pagers went all throughout, all the little Hezbollah terrorists all over out
00:08:38.820there, they waited. I mean, the patience is just amazing, the planning. And then they sent whatever
00:08:47.300it was with the programming, and it's saying, okay, it's time. So yesterday, all at once, thousands of
00:08:52.400pagers exploded all across Lebanon and Syria. And these weren't giant explosions, we were talking about
00:08:58.080an ounce or so of explosives. But when you have it tight to your body, it can be pretty devastating.
00:09:01.940And you see, Hezbollah sorts, you know, they don't wear belts a lot, because when they want to go out
00:09:09.200raping, which is what, you know, Hamas and Hezbollah like to do, belts hold them up, slow them down. So
00:09:13.900they keep their pagers in their front pocket. Well, what happened then? Oh, yeah, they blew their balls
00:09:18.860off. Thousands of them. It was brilliant. It was beautiful. And the memes, the mockery, the laughing
00:09:24.860over it, as all of these Hezbollah terrorists got neutered. And others were injured an assortment
00:09:32.320of other ways. But these pagers all went off. Some picked them up. And yes, it blew up in their
00:09:37.500faces, literally. I don't have much pity, because these are literally terrorists. What better way
00:09:43.080to narrow down who the ones you were targeting are? Nobody else on the planet is still using pagers.
00:09:49.780You know, they haven't been used since the 90s. Only Hezbollah members would have a pager on them.
00:09:56.220Magnificent timing. Somebody pointed out there was one little girl that got killed. And that is tragic
00:10:00.620if that happened. For sure it is. One out of three, four thousand terrorists who had these pagers blow
00:10:08.940up on them. It's why is Israel held under such a microscope that the only way they can defend
00:10:16.120themselves is if there's absolutely zero collateral damage. Yet, Hamas and Hezbollah launch missiles
00:10:22.780daily into residential areas completely indiscriminately. They don't get the scrutiny.
00:10:28.860I mean, this was just brilliant. Brilliant. And yeah, John Cook saying, a commenter saying,
00:10:37.460there was no explosives according to sources. Yeah, the sources are changing all over. Some are saying
00:10:40.740it was a type of force the batteries to overcharge and then heat up. Maybe. But that's quite a pop. If you
00:10:45.740see some of the videos for just the battery, but who knows? Who knows? What most have been hearing
00:10:50.600I've seen from sources. Though, I mean, the TV movie that's going to be made from this, I'm sure
00:10:55.100will lay it out more. But it sounds like it was a Taiwan source for the pagers and then it was made in
00:11:01.500Hungary somewhere. But they would have still had to be intercepted and reprogrammed to be able to go off.
00:11:08.280Who knows? It's tech beyond my ability. But it was brilliant. It was just brilliant.
00:11:13.500So they did this. Now, this is set, of course, the Hezbollah world aflame. They are really running around
00:11:20.500like chickens with their heads cut off. And then today, when they started having funerals for the ones
00:11:24.700that did manage to get killed by these exploding pagers, they had swapped. They said, well, we've got to go
00:11:29.820down yet another level from pagers and we're going to communicate through walkie-talkies. Well, hundreds of
00:11:34.020those blew up today and blew up a bunch more of the idiots. It's beautiful. It's just magnificent.
00:11:37.880So these guys are, the terrorists are terrified. They don't know what to be afraid of, what not to
00:11:45.340be afraid of. They don't know what's booby-trapped. This is just magnificent. I mean, and people saying
00:11:50.540again, Israel are the terrorists. Look what they did. Oh, come on. Now, Israel could have turned Beirut
00:11:55.860into glass years ago if they wanted to. They could carpet bomb the area. They could fire artillery into
00:12:03.340there constantly. No. Instead, they targeted the terrorist yahoos with their pagers and blew them
00:12:11.700up. Yeah. John Cook saying, I guess they'll have to go back to smoke signals. They are out of options.
00:12:15.140Now, this could be, I mean, I've seen some of these, this is how to escalate things. Escalate,
00:12:20.540escalate. Israel's been dealing with rockets, hundreds of hundreds of rockets a week coming
00:12:25.740into their residential areas that they're trying to shoot down coming from Hezbollah. Escalate,
00:12:30.380what are they going to do? Make Hezbollah attack them? Guys, that ship sailed. No, Hezbollah's
00:12:35.620running around. They don't know what the hell they're doing now. They've got thousands of
00:12:39.120castrated members running around, some blind. The levels and levels on how this is messed with
00:12:46.220Hezbollah is, again, just beautiful. People are going to follow this as one of the most brilliant,
00:12:52.100you know, planned military actions ever taken out in world history. It really was. I mean,
00:12:58.700now they're scared of their shadows. Now thousands of them have been taken out of the mix and injured.
00:13:03.440And you know what? Injured is worse than dead in many ways, because they walk around as examples and
00:13:10.500testaments to the other budding terrorists out there. The young wannabe terrorist might be looking
00:13:16.260and saying, you know, Jesus, he's watching Uncle Ahmad shuffling around in his, you know,
00:13:22.200testicle-less way and speaking in his high-pitched voice thinking, maybe I'm going to break the family
00:13:27.360chain of going into terrorism and become a dentist or something or a chef. I might reconsider my life
00:13:34.420career path. So this route has done something. And yes, things might escalate in a sense that again,
00:13:42.260you know, Iran's been funding these terrorists on the border of Israel for years. Israel's had
00:13:46.740enough. They have to defend themselves. They're pushing back. And now that Hamas is in such disarray
00:13:52.200with so many injuries, so much fear, so much confusion, they've lost their abilities to
00:13:56.420communicate with each other. If indeed there's going to be an entrance into, you know, Lebanon or
00:14:04.260to try and further clear them out, this would be the time to do it. Joe Mills saying, perhaps they
00:14:09.740should try these negotiations. Oh, kiss my ass, Joe. They've been doing that for years. Guess what?
00:14:15.740It's Hamas who rejects it every time. It's Hezbollah who rejects it every time. There's no negotiating
00:14:21.760with these people. They want every Jew dead. You can't negotiate with that. You can't. I mean,
00:14:31.040what do you expect? So instead, they went and blew the balls off a few thousand of them. And I think
00:14:36.300it's beautiful. Somebody said, how can you sleep at night just being so callous about it? I sleep with
00:14:40.680dreams of Hezbollah balls bouncing across the desert. And it makes me smile. Joe was being
00:14:46.660rhetorical. Okay, thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. You know, it's hard to get those across
00:14:52.020on social media. So I appreciate the correction. But yeah, there just isn't negotiation. I don't like
00:14:58.460the idea of ongoing war. I don't. I wish things could be settled there. I hope one day, some
00:15:03.800generations from now, they are. But in the meantime, an incredible tactical strike has been carried out.
00:15:10.160And you've got to give a thumbs up to Israel on this. The amount of planning, of secrecy,
00:15:16.080of coordination, of timing. It should strike fear into some of these terrorist sarts. It should let
00:15:22.060them know, just like the ones who attacked the athletes in the Olympics in the past and others,
00:15:28.100Israel doesn't forget. They're patient. They will get you. It's going to take a while, but they'll get
00:15:33.100you. Maybe these Arab nations should start focusing on taking care of their own people instead of
00:15:37.980killing Jews for a little while, and they might do a little better for themselves.
00:15:41.840All right. So we'll get ready for my guest. It looks like he's, it looks like he's going to be
00:15:45.300an outdoor hit from Dr. Sundberg there. So we'll tune into there. We're going to talk a bit about
00:15:52.840immigration, crime, and some broad issues. Hello, Dr. Sundberg. Thanks for joining us today.
00:15:58.080Thanks for having me. I am out in the beautiful Calgary afternoon here. So I hope you can hear
00:16:04.060me okay. You're coming in all right. Yeah, you might as well take advantage of the weather while
00:16:08.000you can. I'll give a little background. You're an associate professor, and your description is so
00:16:11.780long. Justice studies and a visiting scholar at University of London's Royal Docs School of
00:16:16.480Business and Law. Boy, you cover a lot of stuff, Dr. Sundberg.
00:16:20.680Well, I like travel, and I love learning. So it's, you know, and getting an international
00:16:26.420perspective is really important, I think, when we think of what we're dealing with.
00:16:30.640Absolutely. So I mean, I'm kind of turning a page for more international issues, but domestic. And
00:16:34.740so, I mean, a lot of discussions, whether it's a recent one with expanding schools, whether we're
00:16:39.820talking about health care, whether we're talking about housing costs, just the volume of
00:16:44.460immigration has been very challenging for us to absorb and deal with. But another aspect has been
00:16:49.640social disorder and crime. What sort of impact has, I guess, the spike in immigration had on
00:16:56.740those sorts of issues within, you know, Western Canada or Canada in general?
00:17:01.500You know, by and large, it's really important to note that the by and large, most immigrants that
00:17:06.080come to our country are hardworking, they come here legally, they want to do, they want to make a new
00:17:12.420life, and they want to contribute to Canada, and they want to build Canadian democracy. The reality,
00:17:17.700though, is that we do have a small portion of that group that enter Canada, because of black screening,
00:17:24.420because of the politicization of our immigration program, that bringing their grievances and their,
00:17:31.740their ideology, their hate fueled ideology from their their own countries, to Canada. And what this results in is we start to see,
00:17:41.640really concerning activities with regards to, we saw here in Calgary, there was two groups of the, I believe it was the
00:17:51.880Eritrean community that had a fairly sizable fight. We've seen, we've seen three people who came to our country that, in
00:18:01.560fact, were members of ISIS, and we're going to carry out mass killings here in Canada and the United States. And that's not the first time we see
00:18:10.040others that came for the via rail bombing attempt that was foiled. We've seen others. So, you know, by and large,
00:18:20.120it's a tough issue because when we have large amounts of immigrants, sorry, Calgary's finest there in the background,
00:18:28.040again, sorry for being outside. But we have seen, we have seen individuals that have been able to come to
00:18:35.720Canada, primarily through our refugee program, coming from largely North Africa and the Middle East,
00:18:42.920who bring with them their beliefs, and sadly, their violence, with respect to, to grievances that,
00:18:53.240that emerge from, from their home countries, and they bring it here, and we see it unfold in our own
00:18:57.240streets. This is really troubling. And it's because of lack of screening. It's because we don't put the
00:19:02.760effort into our immigration program. And also, because we politicized our immigration program.
00:19:08.840Immigration is largely about economics, getting workers and skilled people. It's also about
00:19:14.280building our country and providing individuals who want to contribute to the Canadian way of life and
00:19:19.720Canadian democracy. We need to ensure that all immigrants want to be good Canadians, that they want
00:19:26.840to participate in our economy. And they're not going to bring the, the hate from abroad. So it's, it's a
00:19:32.360challenging issue. But heaven forbid, if you speak about it, it can be a pretty hot topic issue.
00:19:38.440Well, that's it. People get afraid of the topic, because it is dicey. And as you said,
00:19:43.240nothing brings up sirens better than a live head, I tell you. So, as you know, most immigrants aren't
00:19:50.360criminals, there's some people who would like to try and label it that way. And that's incorrect,
00:19:53.640it's unfair, it's not right. But I guess from two fronts, there's things we got to deal with. One,
00:20:00.280with that initial screening, the ISIS terrorist, we let in, he was all you had to do was Google search
00:20:05.720the guy, he had a video dissecting a man, you know, in an execution. How did our most rudimentary of
00:20:14.120screening not catch this guy? Frankly, we just don't have the, the technology
00:20:21.000and the officers in our system that have the capacity to adequately screen. We also don't have
00:20:28.520biometric screening. So we don't have like, you know, when you enter the United States,
00:20:32.760you're giving your fingerprints, your photograph, we don't do that when you're coming into Canada.
00:20:36.360And the other thing is, we don't have as many officers, we have, we'll see a handful of officers
00:20:41.560overseas, that liaise with foreign governments, so that we can identify threats before they come here.
00:20:47.720So we're dropping the ball in all sorts of all sorts of areas. I served 15 years with what's
00:20:54.280today the Canada Border Services Agency. Sadly, it was the same then might even be worse now. And
00:21:00.200we have to stop relying on our foreign partners, of course, we have to work with them. But we need to
00:21:06.040contribute to in Canada, within the five eyes, which is Australia, New Zealand, the United States,
00:21:11.480Australia, and the United Kingdom. We are known as the lazy eye out of the five eyes.
00:21:18.120So it's time for us to put our glasses on, see an optometrist and start pitching in and doing our
00:21:23.560part to ensure we keep democracy, not just in Canada, but throughout the free world, free.
00:21:29.240Yeah, and I don't want to say, I don't want to sidetrack into the full rabbit hole, but it seems
00:21:34.360we can't even clean the compromised people out of our own House of Commons, much less people trying
00:21:40.120to immigrate. So the second part of it, though, and that's where, you know, again, more into the
00:21:44.840focus of your lifetime of studies, and it's a complicated one. But the next generation,
00:21:51.640the radicalized youth, I mean, often they're born in Canada. These are Canadian citizens,
00:21:56.520these are people we, how do we prevent them from becoming so disenchanted, so isolated,
00:22:02.200so radicalized, that they're performing these kinds of crimes after the fact? I mean,
00:22:07.000we understand it was the parents who brought that, but they put it down to the children.
00:22:10.680And now we've got multi-generational radicalism. How can we cope with that?
00:22:16.200Well, when you think of how many people left Canada to go and fight for ISIS, that's a good,
00:22:21.400a lot of them came from Calgary. You know, this is an issue. We need to have a better immigration
00:22:29.720orientation for newcomers. We need to have laws that are enforced. We have laws in place,
00:22:35.800too. We have hateful rhetoric and this rise in anti-Semitism. We need to enforce those laws. And
00:22:41.960frankly, we need to put some more energy and effort and thought into how we screen people,
00:22:46.840from visitors to permanent residents to new citizens. And we saw, we've seen in the last few
00:22:52.360months, well, arguably the last decade, how our politicization and this crazy notion of ignoring
00:23:00.280immigration and plugging our ears and hoping that things will get better, but that's the answer.
00:23:04.520Clearly it's not. As soon as one of these people who has these hateful beliefs that has been
00:23:13.320radicalized enters the United States without detection and causes a terrorist attack down
00:23:19.400there, which is plausible. We saw it almost happen. That will have a dire consequence on our economy.
00:23:26.200And we saw what happened with Rassan. We saw what happened with others where this has impacted our
00:23:31.640relationship with our largest trading partner. We have to do better as a nation, if not for our
00:23:37.560national security, for our economy. It's both. And we're just not doing that because we have
00:23:43.160currently a government that doesn't see border security and immigration control as meaningful
00:23:49.320or valuable. And they just want to open, you know, we have an immigration system that's largely
00:23:56.280based on the honor system and, you know, it doesn't work. It doesn't work very well.
00:24:01.720Unfortunately, there's a lot of dishonorable people out there. And something else is, we've been so
00:24:07.080permissive on a particular group that is intimidating another one. I mean,
00:24:12.520had it been, if we had guys dressing up like clan members and marching weekly in a predominantly
00:24:19.960black community, I don't think that would happen more than one weekend. But a year now of targeted
00:24:27.880intimidation of the Jewish communities in Canada. Yet we, I understand free expression is very important.
00:24:34.680You can't just crack down every time there's a protest and start, you know,
00:24:37.640belting people with the truncheans, but they're just getting bolder and bolder and bolder.
00:24:42.920And why are we putting up with this? Because it's messaging the other radicals that, hey,
00:24:46.280you know what, we can pretty much get away with anything.
00:24:48.600Well, we're seeing it because it's coming from our universities, it's coming from our colleges,
00:24:54.040it's coming from, unfortunately, educators, my peers, my colleagues. We see this focus on EDI,
00:25:02.440I know Mount Royal University, no mention of antisemitism. So I think the EDI program at
00:25:07.640Mount Royal is absolute garbage. If it doesn't include issues against Jewish hate and antisemitism,
00:25:13.160well, then that's just, that's just garbage. But this, this ideology, this, this very toxic belief
00:25:20.680in, you know, this, this intersectionality and these aspects are very damaging to our society.
00:25:28.200And it's fueling the radicalization instead of having some objective, well thought out scholarly
00:25:36.040arguments, we see misinformation, disinformation, and we see opinions being taught as opposed to actual
00:25:41.560facts. That's a problem. And a lot of this is being allowed and encouraged because of this,
00:25:47.400frankly, woke EDI ideology that is, in my view, very destructive to our social fabric.
00:25:53.400We need to get back and recognize that, you know, we don't choose what color of skin we're born with.
00:25:59.000And our charter allows us to have protections of association and freedom of consciousness. And when
00:26:05.000we have this, this toxic ideology that's jammed down people's throats, and then it's, it's amplified by,
00:26:12.920by professors or other educators, this week, this is what contributes to the radicalization. And it's
00:26:19.400very, very dangerous. As a member of Calgary's Jewish community, I'm very concerned. And as a professor,
00:26:26.520I'm equally concerned, like, we should be educating, not, not jamming an ideology and opinion,
00:26:32.600that's, that's predicated on hate and false information down the throats of our students,
00:26:37.080because they believe what they get at university, because they're paying for it.
00:26:40.440So I really do think that the solution for our province specifically here in Alberta,
00:26:45.720is that I hope that the minister responsible for advanced education takes a look at these EDI
00:26:51.400programs and identifies that they are part of the problem that they are feeding antisemitism,
00:26:57.240mandatory antisemitism education. I know that's coming. That's great. And, you know, again, we,
00:27:03.000we, it's time we hold people to account that there's consequences for the behavior. We're not
00:27:07.720seeing that. And individuals, I'm one of the few academics who's, who's, I'm tenured, so I do have
00:27:14.040some degree of freedom to express my scholarly informed thoughts. But, you know, I am definitely the
00:27:21.720outlier. Uh, most, most of my colleagues would think, uh, uh, that it's, uh, that things are great.
00:27:28.680They're not great, or we wouldn't have encampments and we wouldn't have the hate that we see.
00:27:34.600Yeah. And then, and just to, to, you know, clarify for some people they might not be familiar with,
00:27:38.280I mean, tenure is a, is a concept that's there to protect academics so that they can express things
00:27:43.160that may not be the popular view, but it allows it to be openly explored, but it's not a rock solid
00:27:48.840protection. I, I believe, uh, Francis Whittowson used to be at the institution you're at as well.
00:27:53.880And, and she was tenured, uh, it, it makes it more difficult, I guess, to stop somebody, but it
00:27:59.640doesn't, uh, it doesn't, uh, stop all intimidation of academia.
00:28:02.920No. And we're seeing that, uh, from the, from the extreme radical left, the activists, uh, uh, um,
00:28:11.080cadre of professors who are, are full, full on promoting and, and, and encouraging EDI to expand,
00:28:19.000that, uh, anyone who questions this, uh, this, this toxic ideology, anyone who, who suggests that
00:28:26.520maybe it actually divides people and it encourages, um, division, divisive beliefs and, and isolates
00:28:34.280people and cancels people, that it flies in the face of academic freedom. Um, but we do see that,
00:28:40.200that is, that is the, that is commonplace, unfortunately, where we see efforts to silence,
00:28:45.400uh, opposition to, to the EDI woke, uh, ideology. It's starting to change. Uh, I'm trying my best,
00:28:52.920and I know that there's others. Um, I'm doing my best to, to bring some attention to this, but I
00:28:59.080think that it's going to have to have government intervention. We're going to need to have the
00:29:03.000minister who's great. We have a great minister of advanced education. I think just like we've seen
00:29:07.240in the United States, we have to start seeing an examination of what's happening on our university,
00:29:12.120college, uh, and college campuses and how much of this information is causing, uh, toxic society.
00:29:18.200This, this, this hate and this, uh, at each other's throats and this, this, this, this division.
00:29:24.760If we're have public institutions that are contributing to that, I think that's a problem.
00:29:28.840But I don't think taxpayers want to see their institutions being places where this hateful rhetoric
00:29:33.640and this toxic, uh, ideology spread into our society because our graduates go on to be lawyers,
00:29:39.240to be police officers, to be doctors and social workers and journalists and others. So we need to,
00:29:45.640we need to really take a look at the, the ground zero, which is our university campuses where we're
00:29:51.640seeing, uh, pro Hamas, pro Hezbollah, like, uh, with, uh, what, uh, you were just speaking on the
00:29:58.360earlier, the earlier, earlier piece, like this, the people who openly support Hezbollah and Hamas,
00:30:05.320who deny the, the, the atrocities of October 7th. How can this be propagated and amplified
00:30:14.600by people who all, like myself, who ultimately are paid for by the taxpayers, institutions that
00:30:20.040are paid by the taxpayers? Academic freedom aside, um, you know, I think Orson Welles was, was quite,
00:30:27.720quite accurate in 1984, the book a lot of us read in high school, um, that we're seeing this,
00:30:33.640uh, this type of society emerge. We have to put an end to it. Otherwise,
00:30:37.880if it keeps going, we're in real dire straits. Well, I mean, I guess one of the pieces of trying
00:30:43.320to fix that puzzle is, is having members of academia speak up and speak out. So I really
00:30:47.560appreciate you doing so. Cause I, I know there's pressures and the easier routes just to put your
00:30:51.800head down and, and just, you know, while away your time and just kind of look the other way.
00:30:55.800So hopefully others are, are going to speak up and we can correct this because it's so important.
00:31:00.200It's important for the next generation as well and then people in general. So I, I really do
00:31:05.320appreciate you coming on to talk to us today. Uh, before I let you go, where, where can people
00:31:09.400follow your work or, or see what you've been up to out there? Well, I'm, uh, at prof underscore
00:31:15.400sunburned on Twitter or X, uh, and then, uh, the Mount Royal university website on my bio, uh, I do have
00:31:22.120my CV attached there with links to some of my scholarship. So, uh, yeah, I, and I encourage people
00:31:28.120to communicate with their MLAs to say, you know what, uh, my tax dollars are going to universities
00:31:33.880and, um, I'm not happy with my tax dollars going to amplify and promote and even further develop a
00:31:41.160toxic ideology. I don't want my, my, my kids to be going to an institution that this kind of nonsense
00:31:47.160is happening where antisemitism is ignored, but, uh, microaggressions are mandatory education.
00:31:53.400Like it makes no sense. It's crazy. It's crazy. No, it's beyond the pale. Well, thanks. I'll let
00:31:58.760you go. And I appreciate you tuning in from out there in the sun. And, uh, I hope we get to talk
00:32:03.160again sometime soon. Anytime. I love your show and I, and, uh, I'd love to come back and speak
00:32:08.600further. So thanks so much for having me and sorry that I am outside today. It's just how it all worked
00:32:12.840out. So yeah, it's a better, a little noisy than not at all. So thanks again. And, uh, we'll talk soon.
00:32:18.040Thanks so much. Take care. All right. So that is Dr. Kelly Sundberg of Mount Royal University. And,
00:32:22.680and, uh, yeah, a big complicated issue when we got to look at, and it really does take,
00:32:27.560I mean, there's so few as some of the commenters are saying that they're just not speaking up in
00:32:31.320academia as things are going wild with the, the ridiculous DEI stuff going on, the radicalization
00:32:37.240of people. You know, uh, I see one of the commenters actually, John Cook saying, uh, you know,
00:32:41.000question before you go, what started in 1984? I think what Dr. Sundberg was talking about was the book
00:32:45.320actually 1984 and talking about how, uh, you know, society is, is it can be so radically changed
00:32:51.400and systematically, uh, you know, George Orwell's, uh, writings, of course, I believe that's what he
00:32:57.400was probably referencing. And, you know, a lot of things get disturbing when you look at these
00:33:02.200radical protests, these extremists that are coming out and getting on the streets.
00:33:06.360But one of the things that's interesting at the university ones, I mean, it's one thing to see,
00:33:09.880I guess you could say some of the radical new Canadians who are out there,
00:33:13.160you can typically tell or assume, I know it's hard to assume, but you know, with the accent
00:33:18.200and, uh, the, the, the outfits and just the way they look that the chances are they're new Canadians.
00:33:23.480But when you see somebody who you can probably assume was born Canadian, probably again, you know,
00:33:28.520some typical middle-class white bread girl out there screaming Hezbollah slogans, what happened?
00:33:35.080How on earth did she become radicalized here? I mean, it's one thing to see it come through the
00:33:41.320family or if it came upon you while you were in the different country, but how did this grow on you
00:33:48.040here? And so many of them like that, that's distressing. If you want to see a real, you know,
00:33:53.640story of how bad that radicalism gets and how long it's been going back, look up Rachel Corey, C-O-R-R-I-E.
00:33:59.880She's also known as Saint Pancake. She got radicalized, oh, 15, 20 years ago and went over to stop the evil
00:34:07.480Israelis over there in the West Bank because they were bulldozing tunnels where the terrorists were
00:34:13.080coming from. She was kindly teaching children how to burn American flags. Real saint, this young lady.
00:34:18.360And, uh, she managed to get run over by a bulldozer. Now I worked around bulldozers.
00:34:22.120They aren't terribly fast, but either was Rachel and she got squashed, but they canonized her. They
00:34:28.920turned her into a hero. No, she's a victim, a victim of idiocy, naivety, and radical ideology.
00:34:35.080She was from Oregon. She had nothing to do with what's going on over there, but she convinced
00:34:39.480herself that she was some freedom fighter for the downtrodden Palestinians. And now she's become
00:34:44.520fertilizer. Who won? Wasn't good. But we're seeing that radicalization happening in our institutions.
00:34:50.520And we really do need to nip that in the bud. I mean, we'll never get rid of all of it. There's
00:34:53.640always going to be one lunatic or flake or somebody who comes out of the system. But when we see a pattern
00:34:57.800of it, we should be concerned. So it's good to see, again, some academics like Dr. Sundberg and others
00:35:03.240speaking up because it's gone too far. All right. Well, let's check in on some more news things.
00:35:07.160We didn't have Dave here earlier, but we still have Sean to check in with the news and the
00:35:11.320business and energy and all those good things. How's it going, Sean?
00:35:14.120Going well, Corey. How are you? I'm all right. I'm all right. Like I said,
00:35:16.760I'm still dark, dark humor. I know I'm a cold, nasty man, but all of those, those terrorist
00:35:22.760balls getting blown up just made me smile. Don't keep your phone in your pants pocket.
00:35:27.320No, no. Usually right about here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's life without
00:35:31.720eggs. It can be challenging, I imagine, but there's, there's a lot of relieved
00:35:35.320goats out there. I'm sure there are. Yeah. So business stories, a lot of big, big business
00:35:40.840story today is what's an NHL team that hasn't won the Stanley Cup playoffs in over 58 years or
00:35:46.920even made it past the second round. What are the, what's an NHL team like that worth?
00:35:52.040I have no idea when the thought of it, but even you're talking about our, our good old Maple Leafs,
00:35:56.440uh, they are an entrenched brand. It's still going to have value though.
00:36:00.040Well, apparently they are the most valuable brand in hockey, even more than the Montreal Canadian,
00:36:05.560you know? So, uh, Rogers is bucking up about $4.8 billion to buy out, uh,
00:36:11.960Bell's stake in, uh, in the management company that owns the Leafs as well as, um, the, uh, Raptors
00:36:19.240and, uh, the Blue Jays. So, um, that puts a, so a few years back, they bought about 75%
00:36:26.280of the team and they split it 37 and a half each. And so the values of the team are probably pretty
00:36:31.640close to about $10 billion. Well, it's kind of interesting. I mean, it is sad from the sports
00:36:36.280perspective. I mean, you, you think, you know, uh, winning would be what brings up the value of a team,
00:36:42.600but I mean, I guess just loyalty, the branding, the merchandising, the ticket sales. I mean, even if
00:36:47.800your team stinks, Hey, if you're bringing all that into the value, it was going to go up from a
00:36:51.560cold business perspective, the betting, the betting revenue. I forgot what it is that Ontarians spent
00:36:57.720on betting last year in the first year of legal betting. I don't know if you notice on sports
00:37:01.560channels there, all the sports books are basically in Ontario and it's, it's already up around two or
00:37:06.760three billion dollars. Well, maybe the new ownership will still, I mean, it'd be nice for them anyways,
00:37:11.320if they're actually winning as well as a valuable. So yeah, I mean, we can, we can only hope.
00:37:17.960Not my team. Yeah. I'm a football fan. I'm busy with that. Yeah. Um, so our, uh, old buddy,
00:37:27.320uh, Robbie Starbuck, who we're still trying to get on, uh, apparently he's had, uh, his wife has had a
00:37:33.320baby and it was kind of a problem. Yeah. We've been playing tag anyway. So, uh, he went after
00:37:39.080Stanley Black and Decker. So Stanley Black and Decker is a exclusive brand here in Canadian tire
00:37:45.320stores. Um, they're the largest maker of power tools in the world. Uh, they make craftsman tools,
00:37:51.480you know, which used to be carried by Sears. I'm not sure who's carrying them now, but, um,
00:37:56.600so he did his lawnmower. Yeah. Yeah. That lasts forever. So, uh, he's taken his DEI, uh, crusade to
00:38:03.000them as well. And they caved, they got rid of everything. They got rid of their whole entire DEI
00:38:08.680department, uh, got rid of all their programs, all their subsidies, uh, everything. Just a dragon slayer,
00:38:14.840you know, but with how quickly these, these big companies are reacting once he turns his sights to
00:38:19.800them, it sounds like maybe they were ready to kind of move away from that crap anyhow. Well,
00:38:23.560it kind of makes me wonder, um, that maybe whether this is kind of part of a bigger trend within the
00:38:29.480corporate world, that maybe, um, it's kind of convenient for them maybe to kind of start getting
00:38:35.080rid of these things now, because it's, it seems like the more, uh, companies that kind of fall
00:38:39.640under the wheel, the less newsworthy it becomes. Yeah. In a sense, you know, it's a good time to kind of
00:38:46.200divest of that thing for new viewers who aren't as familiar DEI is the diversity equity inclusion.
00:38:51.880That's when we're a company's focusing more on quotas and, and, and other things rather than
00:38:58.040productivity, which, well, it just isn't very a profitable approach to things quite often.
00:39:03.000Well, or even, uh, compared to their, uh, you know, customers, like the best targets were,
00:39:09.240you know, Harley Davidson and Jack Daniels, you know, these kinds of people that probably could
00:39:13.320care less about the, uh, you know, I'm, I'm sure that there's probably some, uh, LGBTQ, uh, uh,
00:39:20.600home handy people. Oh, sure. But you know, I think the point is, is that
00:39:27.960you can still be that way if you really want to be, but why does the company have to, you know,
00:39:32.440specifically cater to that kind of a crowd? The LGBTQ couple that is renovating their basement
00:39:39.400still wants just a reliable tool for the best price, like anybody else. I'm sure that that's
00:39:44.600their bigger concern when they go shopping for that skill saw, rather than whether or not there's
00:39:48.600a certain number of rainbows on the floor during certain months of the year and getting value for
00:39:52.840your dollar. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we all do. It's good to see the pendulum swing.
00:39:57.080And, uh, finally, uh, city of Calgary is putting up, uh, EV subsidies for,
00:40:03.560for the chargers. This time it's for the chargers and like, uh, apartment buildings and condos and
00:40:09.240multifamily things. Um, the kicker on it though, is they're putting up, uh, $4,000. So after next
00:40:15.480Monday, you'll be eligible to apply for up to $4,000 for a professionally installed unit. It goes for
00:40:22.920about 600 bucks at home Depot. That sounds like the city of Calgary. They, they put the brilliant
00:40:29.240minds of the green line on the EV charger program. And there's a local, probably don't have a cord
00:40:34.440that's that long as well. You have to lift your car into it. Yeah. Well, and there's a local company
00:40:39.240here in Calgary that, uh, installs them. Um, they do the solar panels and everything, but they install the
00:40:45.320EV chargers and they say they can do it for 500 to 1600 bucks. So they're, they're taught like to
00:40:52.200install, you know, the love. And it depends on whether you have level one, level two, level three
00:40:57.000chargers, right? These level three chargers or whatever they're, they're like about 150 grand,
00:41:03.080but, uh, these just. It's probably the time they use for the buses that they still haven't gotten yet.
00:41:06.840Yeah. The bus and the fire truck. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, so if you're going to park your car
00:41:11.000overnight in your garage, you know, you don't really need, uh, you know, the high wattage, uh, you know,
00:41:16.200charging, you know, $600 units probably good enough. Yeah. It would be even better if you could just plug
00:41:22.120the thing into the wall, but I think we're a little ways away from that yet.
00:41:25.640Yeah. It'll get there, but it just seems that these idiotic programs are just lining people's
00:41:29.240pockets, not actually responding to consumer demand, but. Well, the problem is that taxpayers
00:41:33.560are ultimately going to have to pay for it, right? We always do. You know, we just spent,
00:41:38.360how many billion on a green line to nowhere. Oh, and I'm going to close off with a little rant on that.
00:41:44.680Okay. Well, I won't preempt you then. All right. No, that's good. It helps segue me. So,
00:41:48.680all right. Well, thanks for the check-in. I mean, they're mostly positive stories in the sense of,
00:41:52.600pushback and DEI and things like that. Yeah. And then, you know, the Maple Lofts. Yeah.
00:41:58.360Maybe something new will come for those. Hey, they're loyal fans. I'll give them credit for
00:42:02.200that. I mean, boy, you gotta be. All right. Well, thanks, Sean. And, uh, we'll talk to you a little
00:42:07.720later. Okay. All right. So that is Sean Polzer. Yes. Our news and energy and business report. He reports
00:42:13.160on all sorts of things. He's in the courthouse covering some other stuff that I won't go into now either,
00:42:17.320but, uh, Sean's very, uh, diverse, uh, with his equitable coverage on things, uh, and enclosing,
00:42:22.200uh, all sorts of stuff. But the green line, I just want to hit on that because yes, it's,
00:42:26.760it's, it's made some news. Not everybody in the city is from Calgary or is too familiar with this
00:42:30.040thing or what's going on with it. It's, uh, an expansion of the light rail transit from downtown
00:42:35.960Calgary now to next to nowhere. And this thing started back in 2015. I mean, they've been talking about it
00:42:43.080for decades. And in 2015, mayor of the time, the head, Nenshi announced, we've cut a deal. It's
00:42:49.640going to go, it's going to go ahead. We're going to break ground in 2017. We're going to
00:42:55.560have this thing reach from the far Northern reaches of Calgary, all the way to the far
00:42:58.920Southern reaches is going to be a 49 kilometer train. And we're going to do it for under $5 billion.
00:43:04.600And, and it's going to be done by like 2023, 2024. Well, here we are today. Here we are today. Mayor
00:43:12.680Gondek and Nenshi is now trying to become premier. Where's this green line? Well, nowhere, nowhere at
00:43:21.240all. In fact, the province, yes, the province came out and said, we've had it. We're sick of you guys
00:43:25.240spinning your wheels, screwing this up, making a mess. It's now been cut down to like 10 kilometers long.
00:43:31.160The cost has gone up to 6.2 billion. And the timeline again, it's 2024. They haven't laid an
00:43:38.520inch of track. Somehow they've pissed away $1.4 billion already. Gondek's crying the blue. So
00:43:43.960it's going to cost 800 million to get out of it. Well, it's still going to save us 6 billion.
00:43:47.480You incompetent boob. Yeah, you're incompetent. The people below you are incompetent. City
00:43:52.680administration is incompetent. Guess who they contracted this thing to? SNC Lavalin. Yes,
00:43:57.880Trudeau's little buddy of a corporation. Inside dealing. Crap money going to Quebec. Your tax
00:44:03.560dollars for nothing. Let's give an analogy. Let's say you wanted to get your house redone.
00:44:09.480The roof. So you talk to a roofer. He says, yeah, yeah, but you got to pay about a quarter of it up
00:44:14.360front and I'll re-roof your house. Okay. And I'll have it done. And you know, this is a real slow
00:44:19.640roofer. I'll have it done in three years. Okay. Well, whatever. Fine. Three years later. Well,
00:44:23.720I'm not quite done yet. Many years later, nine years later, he comes back and says, yeah,
00:44:28.120I haven't really started on it yet, but now I'm going to raise the price by 20%. I'm only going to
00:44:33.880do a quarter of your roof. And I get to keep the money you already gave me. What are you going to
00:44:40.360do as a homeowner? How long, how long are people expected to wait for the incompetent idiots in
00:44:46.280Calgary city hall until this thing is down to one kilometer and $12 billion. You got to pull the
00:44:52.440plug on this thing. Eventually there's a term. If you want to look it up called the sunk cost fallacy
00:44:56.920because some people say, well, we're just throwing away the money spent already. If we shut it down
00:45:00.120now, no, we aren't. We've been throwing it away already. Why throw more? Plus some of that was land
00:45:06.920that they bought for the LRT anyways, sell it. You get some of the money back and we should be doing a
00:45:12.600bloody forensic investigation. Who are these crux that sucked in because they're saying there's a
00:45:17.400thousand people going to be put out of work. A thousand people. Well, what the hell were they
00:45:21.560doing? Remember not an inch of track has been laid down. They've been screwing you guys.
00:45:26.840They've been robbing you. They've been taking your tax dollars and giving you nothing.
00:45:30.440So yes. Thank you, Premier Smith. Thank you, Devon Dreschen. And to hell with you,
00:45:34.680Jody Gondek for trying to defend this ongoing ripoff. If you just bloody well gotten some track on the
00:45:40.920ground, it'd be hard for somebody to say, okay, we've got to stop this. But you idiots took nine years and
00:45:46.280spent $1.4 billion and got nothing built. So it wasn't that hard to make the case and saying,
00:45:50.680we're done giving you money. Now fire her next year, Calgary, fire her, fire most of that council
00:45:57.400and vote for people who are saying they're going to flush city administration because that's full
00:46:01.480of crooks and bureaucrats too. Anyway, I'll leave on that rant. You know, we've had pagers blowing up
00:46:06.840balls, province blowing up the green line and the Toronto Maple Leafs just blowing up an entire
00:46:12.520generation of hockey fans. So thanks for tuning in today, guys. I appreciate it. Be sure to get
00:46:17.240on there. Westernstandard.news slash subscription. I forgot to mention it earlier. We're subscription
00:46:21.800based $9, $10 a month, $100 a year. It keeps us rolling. We're independent. We don't take tax dollars.
00:46:28.360Tune in next week. At this time, we will do it all over again. Thanks for tuning in today, guys.
00:46:34.760If the name Ted Byfield brings back fond memories, well, we got a party coming up for you guys.
00:46:39.480On September 25th, Toasting Ted is what it's called. It's going to honor a great conservative
00:46:44.200who published Alberta Report news magazine. It's going to be bagpipes, singing, live auction
00:46:49.320stakes, speeches by Premier Smith, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, quite a lineup.
00:46:53.240The Western standard is the final incarnation or the latest incarnation of Alberta Report that Ted
00:46:58.600Byfield founded. And I mean, he was a great Albertan. He really made his mark on this province.
00:47:03.720And this evening of celebration for him is really going to be outstanding. You get there,
00:47:07.160toastingted.ca. That's the website. You can get your tickets. This one's going to sell out. I mean,
00:47:12.040again, if you want to see Smith, Manning, Harper, all in one spot, one night, be sure to get there.