Western Standard - CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta’s budgetary shame

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome to the Corey Morgan Show.

00:00:29.480 I guess it doesn't show as well as I'd hoped or thought it might in the back camera there,

00:00:33.200 but there's that cold steam coming up because it's bloody winter outside and all foggy again

00:00:38.020 out in Alberta. But then it's going to be, I've heard reports as high as 18 degrees in Calgary

00:00:44.100 on Saturday. So day by day, who knows what's going on out here. I guess we get breaks from

00:00:49.540 the winter, which is better than nothing, but I'm not big on them. You know, a lot of people

00:00:52.980 got on my case for crossing the border into the States for my winter escape down in Arizona,

00:00:57.640 calling me a traitor and all the usual stuff or whatever or just saying that you know you should

00:01:01.800 try out some of the other tropical spots well how's Mexico Cuba or the Middle East looking

00:01:06.860 these days for a winter break anyways I'd say driving down to the desert was probably the

00:01:11.940 safest and best choice I could make I plan on doing it again this winter all right so yeah

00:01:17.320 we got some crazy world events going on and things like that but I'm going to start by talking about

00:01:21.620 things a little more locally the budget came down last week provincially in Alberta here

00:01:26.640 And the UCP government in Alberta, they inadvertently caught a break as energy prices

00:01:31.540 predictably spiked due to the latest war in the Middle East. So for every dollar the world price

00:01:37.340 of oil rises, the provincial government garners nearly 700 million in royalties. So if the war

00:01:43.620 in Iran is protracted, it is possible the budgetary deficit of 9 billion announced in Alberta last

00:01:49.100 week could actually turn into a budget surplus by the end of the year. The Alberta government

00:01:53.900 should respond to this by cutting spending. We can't allow a fluke of world oil prices to let

00:01:59.340 the provincial government get off the hook for a deficit that was built primarily due to

00:02:03.440 irresponsible spending. Alberta's debt is going to reach $100 billion, and it should be the shame

00:02:09.300 of politicians and voters alike. If the government wants more money to play with, then paying down

00:02:14.380 that debt has to be priority number one. It'll give them $4 billion a year in saved interest

00:02:19.380 payments they can spend without having to hike taxes by a penny. People, including finance

00:02:24.380 minister Nate Horner, have been floating the notion of imposing a sales tax on Albertans.

00:02:28.960 The response from citizens at this concept should be nothing less than outrage. The government

00:02:33.320 doesn't have a revenue problem. How many times have we got to say this? It has a spending problem.

00:02:37.900 If they can't get their spending habits under control, revenue from a sales tax would just be

00:02:42.440 dumped into a growing black hole of spending. Sales taxes, they have a declining rate of return

00:02:47.320 as they impact the economy with reduced consumer spending, they raise the cost of living.

00:02:52.180 And, you know, tourisms might choose to spend their vacation dollars elsewhere. It's not a

00:02:56.100 magical pool of funds to tap into without consequences, as some are trying to frame it.

00:03:01.600 The UCB government raised the education property tax by nearly half a billion dollars.

00:03:05.840 These taxes impact the cost of housing for renters and owners alike. They also hike taxes

00:03:10.340 on rental cars and hotels, which is going to hit our tourism revenue. With massive tax and spending

00:03:16.140 hikes, the government can't pretend to be fiscally conservative. Yes, mass immigration has put

00:03:21.380 pressure on services in general. The 6% increase in health spending and the whopping 30% increase

00:03:26.040 in education spending addresses that. Most Albertans are okay with increasing spending

00:03:31.140 within reason, at least on core services such as health and education, but that still leaves a lot

00:03:35.220 of fat to be cut. Why is the province increasing spending on art? How much ugly, crappy public art

00:03:40.120 do we need? Why is the cost to paying government employees going up 14% in one year? Why is there

00:03:47.900 still a massive expensive program to bring fiber optic internet services to isolated rural homes

00:03:52.060 when most of them have already gotten Starlink? They got sick of waiting for the government.

00:03:55.440 The list of things to cut is long when the government finds the will to look for them.

00:03:58.840 Problem is the government isn't looking. They're taking the lazy NDP style approach to issues by

00:04:03.120 raising taxes and spending and that's not what Albertans voted for. Did the spending increases

00:04:08.060 buy any love from the teachers unions or socialized health care activists? Of course not. They panned

00:04:13.400 the budget and they're still doing everything in their power to bring the UCP down. The Alberta

00:04:17.100 Federation of Labor with old Gil McGowan there's planning mass protests after an attempt to bring

00:04:22.500 down the government through recall initiatives. That failed dismally. So why pander to them further?

00:04:27.300 Premier Smith must trust Albertan voters to accept spending restraint. Albertans have voted for

00:04:33.160 conservative governments for decades because they value fiscal conservatism. It was the gross

00:04:37.820 overspending of the Stelmac and Redford governments that brought the progressive

00:04:41.240 conservative dynasty to an end, Smith can rest assured if she doesn't get a handle on spending

00:04:45.780 soon, an alternative will form on her right. And we'll all remember, we do all remember what the

00:04:50.780 consequences of vote splitting are. Look, when Ralph Klein balanced the budget, he didn't wait

00:04:55.320 for better oil prices to do it. He cut spending without apology. Unions and pundits, they went

00:04:59.840 wild at the time. They predicted the demise of the Klein government and protests flourished.

00:05:03.980 Then Klein went to the polls and Albertans rewarded him with a bigger majority government.

00:05:07.820 Klein continued with the austerity governance and union members literally attacked the legislature

00:05:12.380 with protests and they were trying to kick the doors down. After four years of this,

00:05:16.060 Klein was rewarded with a bigger majority. In his last term, Klein started to spend heavily again

00:05:22.060 and it led to reduced support for him. Look, the only thing harder than cutting spending during

00:05:26.380 tough times is cutting spending during good times. But it must be done. Smith must resist the urge

00:05:31.260 to continue tossing money at issues even if the high oil prices flood the government coffers.

00:05:35.900 alberta doesn't need a larger and more encompassing government it's hard to maintain the higher ground

00:05:40.460 when complaining about taxes spend attitudes in ottawa when edmonton does the same bloody thing

00:05:45.260 for the sake of the economy and future albertans the ucp must remember the c in their name and

00:05:49.980 become a conservative party and wrestle their spending under control because the 2026 budget

00:05:55.180 is nothing less than an embarrassment that's all i got how's it going dave it's going good

00:05:59.740 are you oh good good i mean you know apart from the budget yeah well it kind of annoyed me and

00:06:05.180 the war yeah the war is a little distressing as well i uh saw on social media yesterday that your

00:06:11.100 bees are bringing out their dead yes they are yeah they're enjoying the good weather they're out in

00:06:15.740 droves uh and yeah that's what they do they drag all the dead ones out and dump them out in the

00:06:20.460 snow you also see little brown spots all around the yard on the snow too uh which uh you know

00:06:26.300 know they call them cleansing fright flights but all it is the bees they won't poop in the hive

00:06:29.980 they'll take it out so so how many bees would be dead over at winter i don't know i it's you know

00:06:37.020 they really that's their cycle they really pad it up with you know like 50 000 bees by the

00:06:41.180 end of fall really getting ready to go into winter and then they cluster and probably be down to

00:06:45.660 maybe 15 000 by spring so it's just kind of a cycle and then they they should be starting to

00:06:50.220 lay again now so there you go there you go circle of life yeah so i'll open them up and get the hell

00:06:55.180 all stung out of me for the first time in spring probably another few weeks there you go uh so yeah

00:06:59.980 let's talk about war cory uh us and israel bombing the hell out of uh iran um the ayatollah is dead

00:07:09.960 they're not picking a they haven't picked a new one yet all the senior clerics decided stupidly

00:07:16.820 to hold a meeting uh during daylight hours yesterday in tiram and israel dropped a bomb

00:07:22.320 on their head so they're all dead uh there was a first time since the second world war a u.s sub

00:07:29.600 sank a naval ship sank an iranian frigate off the coast of sri lanka uh so scores of uh iranian

00:07:38.240 sailors are are dead or treading water or shark food at the moment so lots uh lots kicking off

00:07:44.640 all over the place. Diplomatic-wise, Great Britain is in a big fight with the U.S. for not helping

00:07:53.380 them. The President, Donald Trump, badly insulted British leader Keir Starmer yesterday by saying

00:08:02.320 he's no Winston Churchill. And he's right, there is no Winston Churchill. Closer to home,

00:08:08.920 Uh, natural resources, uh, minister, uh, Tim Hudson said, Hey, this war is good for a good for us.

00:08:15.400 It's good for energy.

00:08:16.840 And the quote was, we will, we see the money.

00:08:20.860 Yeah.

00:08:21.220 Well, that's a little closer to what I was talking about with the budget.

00:08:23.780 Okay.

00:08:24.040 Yeah.

00:08:24.280 So we world events have brought in funds, but not really in the nicest way.

00:08:28.520 No, no.

00:08:30.100 Uh, but he says it's an opportunity to get a safe, reliable Canadian energy, uh, out exporting around the world.

00:08:37.560 And if only there was like a way to do that.

00:08:39.680 I don't know, you know, blimp, maybe fly it out there or something.

00:08:43.760 There was plans at some point back in the day of getting dirigibles up there filled

00:08:48.180 with oil.

00:08:49.820 Uh, what else is going on?

00:08:51.980 Oh, we got, uh, Mark Carney, it continues his never ending world tour.

00:08:56.480 He's down in Sydney today.

00:08:58.940 Uh, changing his stories on, on about the, about the war.

00:09:04.340 Former Israeli Prime Minister called Carney stupid today.

00:09:08.820 And we've got Pierre Polyev in Germany giving a speech in Berlin this afternoon.

00:09:16.100 We've got a deep dive into that Musqueam Treaty mess that's over in Vancouver.

00:09:22.620 I would certainly not move into Vancouver at this point.

00:09:25.760 No, I mean, I understand.

00:09:28.760 They say that, oh, this is just a gesture.

00:09:31.780 It's a symbol.

00:09:32.300 Don't worry about your real estate prices.

00:09:34.340 Well, they said that with Richmond too, and then banks refused to refinance

00:09:37.640 and companies pulled the hell out.

00:09:39.380 I just, I'm sorry.

00:09:40.980 I don't believe them anymore.

00:09:42.200 No, no.

00:09:42.940 And it's not going to be the last one, right?

00:09:45.260 I mean, it's pretty soon they're going to be all over Canada.

00:09:49.200 Well, I would suggest that productive, hardworking British Columbians sell

00:09:53.740 their houses now while they can come to Alberta, make a good living in the land

00:09:58.560 where it was already all permanently ceded in the treaties.

00:10:01.640 Do we have room though?

00:10:02.980 Well, if they're hardworking, productive people, yes.

00:10:06.620 Then we got a report going to City Council today that because of the infrastructure repair needs that were ignored by Nenshi and Gondek, we're now facing a $610 million bill to fix up infrastructure.

00:10:22.680 So that'll raise taxes a little bit.

00:10:24.800 Well, yeah, Congress back into the, if it's yellow, let it metal zone, isn't it again with that water line?

00:10:29.600 i think so water water rationing coming in on uh monday so we're all going to go to your place

00:10:34.640 and shower in the morning yeah i got my own well i'll charge you know a moderate charge

00:10:39.840 well you know bring some cookies or something maybe cookies i noticed jeremy farcus has been

00:10:44.960 on the warpath with premier smith and i yeah i gotta admit he's kind of right like you know

00:10:49.120 they went and dumped the the tax hike onto the city of calgary but then they're taking the loop

00:10:54.240 yeah largest tax hike uh against calgary in history uh it's more like 355 dollars a house

00:11:01.680 household it's outrageous absolutely outrageous then it's only like a hundred and some per household

00:11:06.240 in edmonton yes of course we you know would you rather live in edmonton come on no no exactly so

00:11:13.600 i guess we gotta suck it up and pay it i have to suck it up and pay it you don't no i mean

00:11:17.920 is your county foothills yeah you're not a citizen foreigner right there you go that's all i got at

00:11:25.820 the moment okay well thanks for the update and i guess i'll see you in a while in the pipeline we

00:11:30.560 will right on all right guys that is our news editor dave natler and uh it's what i like to

00:11:36.400 remind you all there's a lot of those stories they're breaking fast and heavy on there the

00:11:41.260 reason dave and his cadre of reporters that he's managing can do that is because you've subscribed

00:11:46.440 So check it out, westernstandard.news slash subscription is $10 a month, $100 for a year.

00:11:52.240 This is how we can pay these bills around here and keep ourselves independent and reporting

00:11:58.460 on those stories that legacy media just won't touch.

00:12:02.120 So yeah, let's see some of you folks with their comments.

00:12:05.560 You know, we see a quacker saying, hi, a vacation destination is nobody's business.

00:12:11.120 Well, I didn't ask yours, Norma, so that's okay.

00:12:13.460 Don't worry about it.

00:12:14.280 Uh, if you want to go to Mexico, by all means, it's, it's your, your full, uh, business.

00:12:19.700 Or if you meant on my end, you know, when people got on my case, when I, I've openly

00:12:22.960 said, uh, I was going to Arizona and yes, it made me an awful trader.

00:12:26.660 I see what you're talking about there as well.

00:12:29.620 And yeah, I don't know.

00:12:30.920 I just laugh about it.

00:12:32.500 And yes, it is.

00:12:33.240 You're just absolutely right.

00:12:34.160 Anyways, it is a person's own business, but that's the life of social media.

00:12:37.800 When you want to share things, you're inviting the busybodies of the world to come in and

00:12:41.500 comment on things, or at least I am.

00:12:43.140 that's part of the problem when I share everything on X. I mean, I can't complain when I get

00:12:46.340 vitriolic responses. I'm kind of asking for it when I stick things out there. I could remain

00:12:51.080 more private, but that's no fun. Uh, so let's see. Yeah. You know that that's the, the issues going

00:13:00.060 on. Yeah. I see that from Norman. Now it's actually defending me. It's hard to get context

00:13:04.900 on a comment area on there. So I appreciate that Norma. And, uh, for those on here live and that,

00:13:10.220 just bear in mind we do have an option for live callers in the final part of the show though

00:13:14.020 nobody's taking me up on it it's because it's they know Corey's such a grouch and they don't

00:13:17.160 necessarily want to interact with me but honestly if you want to call in and chat you can see the

00:13:21.900 number at the bottom of the screen 866-479-9378 and the extension 711 you'd be put on hold towards

00:13:30.860 the later part of the show we could pop you in and have a conversation about one of these many

00:13:35.040 many issues that are going on right now and uh there is a lot happening all right but you know

00:13:42.340 i see the guest in the lobby and i meant to mention that off the top of the show i've been

00:13:45.480 looking forward to this is former alberta human rights commissioner uh head there uh cullen may

00:13:50.480 he's also a senior fellow at the frontier center director of research with the free speech union

00:13:54.760 of canada and he's written many things on the national post the hub uh the jerusalem post and

00:14:01.640 the Calgary Herald. And, uh, well, you know, the human rights commissions have been in the news

00:14:06.260 again, and it's rarely in a good way. And, uh, it's time to have a discussion about these, you

00:14:11.040 know, do we need them or can they be improved or, or what purpose do they serve? So let's bring Mr.

00:14:15.580 May in and have that conversation. Hello, Colin. Thank you very much for joining us today.

00:14:19.660 Hi, Corey. Thanks for having me.

00:14:21.960 So I guess just to get a bit of a background, I, I, I remembered from at the time when you

00:14:27.160 were there. For a short time, you were the head of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. And it's,

00:14:34.460 well, basically, you got cancelled. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I got cancelled. I think in part,

00:14:41.340 it was because I was interested in making some changes there. The Alberta NDP, who knew me

00:14:47.520 personally, didn't want me to do that. And so they came up with their series of smears to get me out.

00:14:55.120 but um my you know that was my goal uh i was in there to make some changes to make some important

00:15:01.760 changes uh and now they didn't get done uh so that's that's that's too bad but uh happy to

00:15:07.880 talk about what i would see is uh something that needs to be done with some of these commissions

00:15:11.620 absolutely so i mean you're a lawyer there were other things you could have been doing with

00:15:17.120 yourself but you chose to join the human rights commission i can only presume uh you felt though

00:15:21.940 you could do some good. What purpose did you see then in human rights commissions? What good could

00:15:26.820 they have been providing for the province when you joined it? Well, I mean, I had a background

00:15:33.160 in some of these similar areas, complaints, tribunals, that sort of thing. I was involved

00:15:38.780 in trying to reform professional regulators, which is another topic similar to human rights

00:15:43.820 commissions. And I thought that, you know, we could do some work with the commission as well

00:15:47.980 to improve procedural fairness, especially, because a lot of the issues that we're seeing,

00:15:53.480 including with the Neufeld case in BC, do come down to whether or not these commissions are

00:15:57.680 actually procedurally fair. And so I wanted to make some changes there. I have a lot of background

00:16:02.160 in that. And that was why I was hoping to do what I was hoping to do there.

00:16:07.300 So there must be some guidelines, you know, so I'll kind of circle this back to the recent case

00:16:13.720 that's really kind of got a lot of, well, there's a couple recently that got people worked up.

00:16:17.380 one's in BC, one's in Ontario. One, I'm just talking to the extent of the penalty laid against

00:16:23.480 a person, $750,000, which I can only guess this man is going to appeal this somewhere to a proper

00:16:31.460 court because it just seems beyond the pale. But are there any limitations on these commissions

00:16:36.000 on the possible penalties they could lay on people? Not really. No, I mean, that's the thing.

00:16:41.520 And now, generally, they're in the lower range, 20,000, 10,000, you know, I think the highest in Alberta when I was chief still was about 40,000, 50,000.

00:16:53.340 But there isn't an actually upper limit.

00:16:56.340 Now, the courts reviewing these can say, yeah, you've gone way too high here, which I'm hoping, even if, you know, whether the courts uphold, you know, the determination on the substance,

00:17:07.500 hopefully uh they will review this and say this award is way uh out of out of the range of the

00:17:15.520 plausible especially for an individual uh because there is a sort of a common law duty to be fair

00:17:20.600 to the respondent uh and this case just isn't there's this this is uh i mean they don't they

00:17:26.040 haven't even identified the people who will be receiving the money yet that so we don't even

00:17:30.960 have actual complainants uh who will be receiving the money it's just a broad class which i think

00:17:35.900 it is completely inappropriate for this sort of award.

00:17:40.800 Yeah, and that's another point that's interesting

00:17:42.820 is that the complainants can be quite well rewarded

00:17:46.480 if they win through these,

00:17:48.020 though it's not going through the proper channels

00:17:50.560 of a civil action in a regular court.

00:17:52.540 So it really incentivizes people to bring in concerns,

00:17:58.120 whether or not necessarily,

00:17:59.280 I mean, you can't speak for all of them,

00:18:00.520 but not necessarily looking to remedy an injustice.

00:18:03.200 I mean, conceivably, some people are just looking

00:18:04.880 to make a few bucks at times oh sure now i mean once they break up this 750 000 that new felt

00:18:11.760 supposed to get it could not it might not be that much but they have no idea yet who these people

00:18:16.020 are that they're even going to give this money to but that's exactly one of the problems with

00:18:20.180 these things is that um you know the awards in the larger and larger awards incentivize people

00:18:28.120 to use these procedures certainly and the thing you've got to know about these procedures is

00:18:32.620 as a complainant, you have no skin in the game, really, because you don't have to pay for a

00:18:39.280 lawyer. That's all taken care of for you. You're represented by these commissions and into a

00:18:44.960 tribunal. You don't have a lawyer. And if you lose, unless you've done something egregious

00:18:49.800 while you've been a complainant, you won't have to pay any costs, which is completely different,

00:18:54.120 of course, from a civil action. So the respondent, of course, has to pay a lawyer, has to go through

00:19:00.220 this process. And the process takes years. You know, in Alberta, it was about five years when

00:19:06.660 I became chief just to get to the tribunal to a hearing. So for a respondent, this is a horrible

00:19:12.920 process to go through. So to play a bit of devil's advocate, or maybe not even so much, I mean,

00:19:19.120 there could be people who have really experienced a human rights, you know, violation against

00:19:24.440 themselves, and they want to seek remedy. If they are a low income person without legal connections

00:19:29.100 and so on though i mean going through the conventional system could leave them hanging

00:19:33.020 because that could take years as well but cost you know many thousands of dollars that they

00:19:36.940 presumably don't have is that part of the purpose i guess of having a commission rather than putting

00:19:42.220 people through conventional courts it is yeah um and i think there's that that's certainly a

00:19:48.540 plausible that was sort of the reason these things started up um now what's happened though is you've

00:19:56.620 seen that these commissions, most of what they deal with are employment matters. So often what

00:20:01.260 you'll find is somebody has been fired, they're making a claim under the Human Rights Commission,

00:20:05.140 but they'll often have a wrong for dismissal suit going to the courts as well. So we've,

00:20:10.160 you know, do we want to have that sort of this commission also being running adjacent to civil

00:20:17.620 action, they may be going to employment standards, they may be going through a grievance process with

00:20:23.060 the union. And of course, the commission now does have more authority in Alberta to stay their

00:20:27.740 proceedings or to put them on hold. But, you know, we've we've kind of moved beyond this basic idea

00:20:34.580 of, OK, you know, so I say you have a gay couple and they're trying to rent an apartment and they're

00:20:40.080 denied the rental. They could go through this process and say there was, you know, there was

00:20:45.580 discrimination. But we're getting these massive awards that would really be more appropriate to

00:20:51.620 be considered in a civil case, not in this sort of venue. Yeah. So, and then there's the crazy

00:20:59.560 large awards. Then there's some small awards, but on some really absurd rulings, which is one that

00:21:04.680 came out in the last couple of weeks as well. So I believe that was in Ontario, maybe it was Quebec.

00:21:09.320 It was a non-binary person who was demanding a non-binary option for haircuts. And this person

00:21:16.840 had the same need for haircuts that you do.

00:21:20.400 So we aren't even looking at a rational need.

00:21:23.200 This was a bald person demanding

00:21:24.820 a specific type of haircut option.

00:21:28.020 I mean, you would think a person

00:21:29.260 with even a smidgen of common sense

00:21:31.100 would tell this complaint and get out of here.

00:21:32.720 We've got better things to do with our time.

00:21:34.720 But instead, they ruled in favor of this person

00:21:38.080 and fined the place $500.

00:21:42.500 Yeah, and I think that's, again,

00:21:44.240 uh it's a procedural issue it shouldn't have gone to that to that link um the the respondent

00:21:52.000 this salon had offered you know three uh three free haircuts and as you say i don't know what

00:21:58.240 i saw the person too i'm not sure what he they she whatever needed them for um i'm not sure what

00:22:04.480 pronouns they use but uh you know it then plus they had said they would remedy on their website so

00:22:12.560 that the problem so that you would have a non-binary option um and so why didn't why wasn't

00:22:20.240 that sufficient that should have stopped the the case there it should have been accepted

00:22:24.560 but instead the complainant moved it along didn't accept that the commission should have said no

00:22:29.600 and there are procedures increasingly now with these commissions to say if you don't accept a

00:22:33.840 reasonable offer then you're done and i think we need more of that and that's why i say again we

00:22:38.960 we need to focus a lot more on the procedural elements because the one in the case in Quebec

00:22:43.040 is also ridiculous. Well, and they're using it as a weapon, some individuals anyways,

00:22:48.500 and activists. It reminds me farther back to when, you know, same-sex marriage was just starting to

00:22:57.220 become a thing. And I'm fully supportive of it by all means. Hey, great. You know, good on you. I

00:23:02.000 hope it works. Hope you, you know, last until retirement and beyond as a married couple,

00:23:05.580 whatever you might be. But there were couples, I remember one in particular in Vancouver, I think

00:23:09.840 it was, went after a Knights of Columbus hall because they knew darn well, it's a Catholic

00:23:14.580 organization and it wouldn't host their reception. Now, if it was the only hall in the world, I could

00:23:19.080 see the problem. But you know, darn well, there was dozens of dozens of halls. Just pick one of

00:23:24.760 those. But they were looking for trouble. And if you're looking for trouble, does that, you know,

00:23:29.040 why should that still entitle you for remedy? That's activism. That's not somebody who's been

00:23:33.160 harmed in a human rights problem. Right. And one of the concerns, and this was in the Neufeld case

00:23:39.360 out of BC, is there was the mention that human rights issues are now moving more. Discrimination

00:23:45.300 is going more from individuals and complainants to thoughts, to belief systems. And people are

00:23:55.860 discriminating more on the basis of belief systems. But the problem with going that route is, of

00:24:00.740 course, people argue over belief systems all the time. You know, that's why you go to university

00:24:07.560 or something. You learn other people's ways of doing things, what they, how they think about

00:24:12.780 things, you know, different philosophies, and you argue over them, and you disagree, and you say

00:24:17.300 some are wrong. So, you know, we're moving into that range, and I think that's a very scary thing,

00:24:23.760 which is, of course, why a lot of people have said in response to a situation like the Neufeld case

00:24:28.240 is bc and alberta would need to do this too needs to get rid of the provision in their human rights

00:24:34.080 code or statute uh regarding this hate speech and the publication of hate speech in the same way

00:24:39.360 that the federal government did under harper and also ontario which does not have this provision

00:24:45.200 in its code so um kind of where you know when you when you contacted me and something i've been

00:24:51.920 saying online i'm kind of at the point of just saying let's just get rid of these commissions

00:24:55.520 I mean, there's nothing they're providing that actually can't be provided in the current court

00:25:00.500 of law. In fact, they've morphed into something, a quasi-judicial layer of bureaucracy that can

00:25:07.100 really punish people. But I mean, I don't know, is it reparable or maybe is it time to get rid

00:25:12.860 of these and expand our courtability? I guess I'm sort of either way, let's try something,

00:25:20.360 let's just do one or the other. You know, I think we could repair them, but it's going to take some

00:25:25.500 serious looking look at the procedural elements that need to be fixed um and i'm kind of i've been

00:25:31.260 i'm a bit surprised that danielle smith given how she's looked at some of the procedure elements of

00:25:35.740 uh professional regulators hasn't looked at the human rights commission because it needs some work

00:25:40.060 a lot of work actually but on the other hand maybe it is time to get rid of them because you could

00:25:44.700 just create a statutory tort of discrimination and it would go to the courts now of course the courts

00:25:51.020 don't really want that because they these were small small amounts they were small claims and

00:25:56.940 they didn't really want to have to deal with them so they sort of liked having them over at the

00:26:00.460 special commission and they just review the decisions if they're bad but you know if we're

00:26:04.940 going to get into these large numbers then absolutely i think you need to have the courts

00:26:10.460 need to deal with this because there's a lot the procedural fairness is much better at the court

00:26:14.780 level. You have two parties who are both can, you know, be, if either one loses, there's costs

00:26:21.640 awarded, but, you know, we don't have that yet. So I think we have to really consider if you're

00:26:26.920 going for some, we maybe do need to get rid of these commissions altogether if we have these

00:26:30.660 higher rewards. Or I'm wondering, I mean, you're more, you know, of course the expert on legal

00:26:36.540 matters. Could another type of court be set up? I'm thinking along the lines of, you know, there's

00:26:40.540 drug courts, for example, because we didn't want to really choke up our already overburdened

00:26:44.760 criminal courts with a lot of people who were obviously suffering from addiction problems,

00:26:49.160 but you still have to deal with them. So there's some jurisdictions outside of Canada that set up

00:26:52.960 drug courts where they, at least then they'll have specialized type of, it's still a prosecution,

00:26:57.940 but it's focused more on the rehabilitation of the individual and it's a little different.

00:27:01.860 And it takes things out of, you know, you don't have a murderer sitting next to a person who's

00:27:05.820 just an addict who was in the, got themselves into trouble. It could have division of the

00:27:11.280 courts be dedicated still the legal system still the courts but it would be just dedicated to these

00:27:16.020 human rights things and then you would still have some of the the same controls as you would in a

00:27:20.020 proper courtroom well sure i think you could now i'd want to be careful with that because of course

00:27:25.400 one of the other problems is these tribunals that are set up are all have a mandate so um they tend

00:27:31.860 to skew towards a certain view of what human rights should be and shouldn't be so that's another

00:27:36.420 problem with them so like say if we we could certainly put them into the court system and

00:27:41.300 because human rights cases are like when i was chief uh they were 80 to 85 percent of the cases

00:27:46.920 were about discrimination in employment so most lawyers who deal with human rights are also

00:27:53.100 employment and labor lawyers so they could be kind of wrapped into that uh part of and have sort of

00:27:59.480 a court just specifically dealing with that and the courts are certainly trying to make some changes

00:28:03.420 to speed up employment and wrongful dismissal claims.

00:28:07.000 So certainly I think that would be another possibility

00:28:09.640 and get them out of this sort of activist approach.

00:28:13.200 And of course, in the BC case,

00:28:14.620 they're very activist there.

00:28:16.960 They even have a commissioner

00:28:17.940 whose whole role is to push a certain notion

00:28:20.960 of human rights, which is very identity-based,

00:28:23.520 which I would completely get rid of.

00:28:24.920 I don't think that's legitimate at all.

00:28:26.560 But yeah, I think we could certainly move to the courts.

00:28:30.760 Are these solely provincial jurisdiction

00:28:32.760 or is this a federally driven sort of thing like criminal law?

00:28:37.700 It's, well, every province sets up their own.

00:28:41.300 So they're different across each jurisdiction.

00:28:43.940 But the feds also have a Canadian Human Rights Commission,

00:28:47.780 which has had its own issues.

00:28:49.900 There's been accusations of racism going on there

00:28:53.220 and their chief had ran into a problem.

00:28:55.740 He got booted out.

00:28:57.340 He came from Alberta, actually.

00:28:59.320 So, yeah, you know, they're all, they're across the country,

00:29:02.240 but each one is different too so they have different approaches all right well that time

00:29:07.280 went fast but it's interesting you know i i see a commenter saying human rights you know i i'd say

00:29:11.600 get rid of them i i'm hoping and i'm thinking the person means the commissions not the human rights

00:29:15.680 and in of themselves but human rights are important and the protection of them is important and and for

00:29:20.880 people who aren't necessarily able to defend themselves so it's going to be an ongoing

00:29:24.080 discussion unfortunately it just seems we've kind of created a monster in the in the mechanism

00:29:28.960 that uh has defeated its its initial perhaps uh goals and purposes so before i let you go though

00:29:34.800 you're quite prolific uh with your your columns and things online where can people find your your

00:29:38.560 work and and your stuff uh so they can you know follow up on what you're doing um i have a lot of

00:29:44.080 on my linkedin page i also have a muckrake page actually i didn't set it up i guess if you write

00:29:49.680 enough you get one of those uh but uh you know i've got quite a bit on there on my facebook page

00:29:56.320 So, you know, look at any of those. And if anybody's interested, you know, send me,

00:30:00.400 send me a link to ask me to, to chat. And I'm happy to talk about any of the things

00:30:05.440 that I've written about recently. And you still have an active legal practice

00:30:09.360 in the province as well, I believe or? Well, unfortunately, when you're

00:30:14.560 canceled and fired publicly, it slows your legal practice down. So my practice is not up to full

00:30:20.800 speed yet. Um, and of course I'm involved in litigation with, with certain parties. So, uh,

00:30:27.120 you know, that takes up some time, but I'm, I'm getting back there. I'm kind of, I'd say I'd have

00:30:30.580 half of a practice. All right. Well, you know, I, uh, I hope it takes off and I do hope you get

00:30:37.100 remedied for, yeah, it's, uh, there would be all almost a whole separate interview to talk about

00:30:40.760 the BS where as you ended up getting canceled, uh, as I said, I remember it happening at the time.

00:30:45.220 I think I might've written a column on it actually back then. So, uh, well, thank you very much for

00:30:49.300 the time you gave us today and for talking about this and well,

00:30:52.840 let's just hope if we keep pushing some common sense will finally come in.

00:30:56.760 I mean, it doesn't always get there, but we've got to keep trying.

00:31:00.220 Yeah. Well, in these, I think the common sense is what's needed and it's,

00:31:03.140 it's not there and there hasn't been,

00:31:05.140 we just haven't shown enough light on these things and,

00:31:07.500 but hopefully these bad decisions will, you know, spur some change.

00:31:12.740 I hope so. I guess when they overshoot the target far enough,

00:31:15.360 it can actually lead to positive change later. It's just, unfortunately,

00:31:18.520 Mr. Dufeld suffers some stress until it gets to that point. So thank you again. And I hope we

00:31:24.200 get to talk again soon. Thanks, Corey. Great. Thank you. So yes, guys, that is Colin May. And

00:31:30.180 yes, he's done a lot of work out there. And he's, oh, I see that as well. He's completing a book

00:31:35.840 right now on the future of cancel culture. I wrote on that, actually, that was in a different

00:31:41.620 publication. I write in multiple places myself, but about the Cailin Ford case, speaking of

00:31:46.840 cancel culture. And that's one that just got into. There's Western Standard Stories on it. We're

00:31:51.400 covering that. Got into the courtroom. Speaking of things that take a long time, I think that was

00:31:55.880 began in 2019 and she's finally getting remedy in the courts there. That's part of how things

00:32:02.160 unfortunately wear you down when it comes to trying to get justice for yourself. But she's

00:32:10.240 really been victimized by cancel culture and she's pushing back and she's fighting back.

00:32:15.080 and to a degree she's already been winning there's been a couple already settled out of court

00:32:19.140 knobs such as Duncan Kinney I believe did and his little I don't I can't keep track of them

00:32:27.240 progress Alberta or press progress but look that stuff up because we do have a civil court's

00:32:32.800 means to deal with things but as we're seeing too it can really take a long painful and expensive

00:32:39.240 time so again hats off for Kaylin she wasn't giving up and she's been pushing and CBC and

00:32:44.800 the Toronto Star and the NDP, all are defendants in this thing. Uh, and yeah, so I, Jacqueline

00:32:52.580 Littler saying, uh, setting up more courts for specialized things. Just kicked the can down the

00:32:56.300 road. Saw the results of divorce courts by a friend. Disgusting. Yeah. Family court. I mean,

00:33:00.840 law is complicated. It's a mess. I, I, of all areas, I wouldn't want to be a lawyer or judge

00:33:06.160 in it. If I had to be a lawyer or judge, I think I want to stay away from the divorces for all I'm

00:33:11.500 worth. But of course, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to be the mediator. Somebody has

00:33:15.320 to sit in the middle. Look, there are some cases of over, you know, too much intolerance.

00:33:23.080 And they're to the point where it gets where somebody should be, uh, perhaps, you know,

00:33:28.460 I guess punished, discouraged. I don't know. And we need a rational discussion on it though.

00:33:32.860 Not when some he, them, whatever the heck it is, nutcase wants to demand a haircut when they have

00:33:38.760 no hair or, uh, that, uh, Jessica Yaniv deal out in BC, you might remember, uh, that guy was out

00:33:46.960 there demanding that, uh, uh, uh, minorities in, in, in, in, uh, aesthetics places wax his nuts.

00:33:55.320 You know, we all remember that. And then of course it was just an extortion scheme really

00:33:58.900 because he would take it to the Immun Rights Commission because of course they will take

00:34:01.760 every case, uh, at least consider every case and it would, uh, freak out those people and

00:34:08.580 he would hope for a settlement outside of that and why people like that are taken seriously and

00:34:14.580 able to abuse that system. You know, we've got to stop that idiocy. So something, let's get more

00:34:21.180 into BC. We got some crazy stuff going on, that Musqueam decision, which nobody quite seems to

00:34:28.520 know what it means yet. But I mean, some of the stuff at first, they wouldn't put the agreement

00:34:34.020 out of the federal government and the Musqueam and British Columbia, what's going on? Like,

00:34:40.000 is this land given control over? Is it not? And they wouldn't give the text to the agreement.

00:34:43.860 So they did release the text. And one of the things that it says is does not create title

00:34:48.940 and does not constitute a treaty or land claims agreement. Okay. But then they could also

00:34:56.940 potentially seek that through the courts. The Cowichan did that. And this opens the door.

00:35:03.720 So some of the people are kind of, I think, overreacting, at least on the immediate consequences

00:35:08.500 of what's going on with that settlement or that agreement or whatever the heck it is.

00:35:13.560 But they are not wrong in being freaked out and concerned about what this is going to

00:35:18.520 turn into farther down the road.

00:35:21.420 This never stops.

00:35:22.920 This never stops.

00:35:24.960 There's where I get on the case of this truth and reconciliation commissions and endless

00:35:30.980 settlements and payouts and so on.

00:35:33.240 when does it end how many more generations are we gonna have to get 500 years away

00:35:38.360 from when uh canada became a country or alberta became a a province before we finally say okay

00:35:45.560 we've paid back enough no it won't end because there's a whole pile of lawyers making a whole

00:35:52.440 pile of money out of this not to mention a whole lot of claimants um constantly reaching their

00:36:00.920 their hands out and getting settlements. I talked about that recently, of course, with the grifters,

00:36:05.400 I'll say that, the fraudsters and the Kamloops band who took $12 million to exhume and dig holes

00:36:11.780 and never did it. And where's the responsibility? If it had been in the business world,

00:36:17.060 you either would have been charged with fraud or at the very least taken to court and would have a

00:36:22.120 lien put on your house until you pay the money back. Nothing though, nothing. What did they do?

00:36:26.340 They gave them another $12 million so they could build a healing lodge for the bodies they never

00:36:30.900 found this endless irresponsibility this endless settlement of something that can never be settled

00:36:40.020 apparently this this uh compensating generationally for things that happened hundreds of years ago

00:36:47.300 not only all of that but it's not working it's not working go onto any reserve and look at the

00:36:53.380 conditions look at any of the statistics for indigenous canadians any of them health economic

00:37:00.100 education any of them and they're lagging on all of them and getting worse all the time despite

00:37:06.180 more and more and more and more money being pumped at them maybe it's time to stop because it's not

00:37:10.820 working if it was working maybe we'd have something to say um harmony balance health

00:37:16.740 singing so what is working properly and even in alberta i i imagine you mean with the human

00:37:20.820 rights commissions uh i i think in alberta we aren't hearing about them as as colin said you

00:37:26.500 you know, these are things that are provincially, I guess, at least administered. So perhaps the

00:37:30.860 Smith government hasn't, uh, you know, hasn't put the ideological lunatics at the head of the

00:37:36.000 Alberta one. I imagine the complaints have been going forward, but if this commission has been

00:37:39.800 showing some common sense and actually vetting these and saying these are nuts, maybe that would

00:37:44.520 work. You know, that's, that's part of it, I guess. You really just, why is it so hard? Why is it so

00:37:50.720 hard to get somebody heading these things who can't just look at some of these frivolous cases

00:37:55.700 and just say, no, no, we're not going to spend our time on that.

00:37:59.280 We're not going to go after somebody on that.

00:38:01.560 You are being unreasonable and we aren't going to let you take up any more of our time.

00:38:06.500 But they don't, or at least they're, well, we never see the ones they say no to.

00:38:09.680 But when we see some of the crazy ones they say yes to, it doesn't seem that they turn

00:38:14.060 down too many.

00:38:15.900 Speaking of insanity, Brampton, Ontario, really turning into one of the hubs for, you know,

00:38:22.940 Canada in its bad examples.

00:38:25.700 And they hosted a memorial for the Ayatollah Khomeini following his death.

00:38:29.900 A memorial, the man who killed 30,000 protesters in five days.

00:38:36.900 You know, the double standards in this world.

00:38:40.040 30,000 protesters, just protesters of his own people in five days.

00:38:46.900 And he didn't get a fraction, well, actually the crap caught up with him now, didn't it?

00:38:51.620 uh but of the world condemnation condemning yeah whatever you know what i mean the world didn't get

00:38:58.000 on his case like they do every time an error into action happens from israel do they the man's a

00:39:03.420 monster i mean you see the quote going around with that man he's the one who was saying before they

00:39:07.640 sentenced women to death and by the way iran routinely sentenced his woman to death for the

00:39:11.940 crime of being raped but there's other crimes you know not listening to their husband things like

00:39:17.520 that. And if it's some sort of crime a woman has allegedly committed, maybe she hasn't been

00:39:22.320 raped because she's still a virgin, but they're going to put her to death because that's what

00:39:25.540 they like to do over there. He's the one who said, make sure she is raped before she is put to death

00:39:31.160 so there's no chance she can get into heaven in the afterlife. Can you get any more evil and vile

00:39:39.160 than that. Yet, here's some evil, vile individuals holding a memorial for that man.

00:39:49.240 Yeah, the world is an ugly, ugly thing. I talked a little, mentioned a little earlier on my thing,

00:39:56.440 yeah, we've got the Elrida Federation of Labor, that's headed by Gil McAllen. He's been there a

00:40:04.020 long time. You know, you get in those labor positions, they're almost as good as being a

00:40:07.140 uh, indigenous chief for getting those, the money, eh, job security.

00:40:12.380 He, he won't admit it, but the reality is that whole recall attempt that's

00:40:18.460 falling apart chronically, they were supposed to petition.

00:40:22.100 They were supposed to unseat the Smith government.

00:40:24.860 Oh yeah.

00:40:25.340 Legacy media was reporting on it in hushed tones.

00:40:27.660 Oh no, Daniel Smith's in trouble.

00:40:30.220 His recalls might knock her majority down to minority and she'll lose government.

00:40:34.420 No, in fact, um.

00:40:37.140 they totally flopped. So now he's saying he's going to launch a big campaign to fight

00:40:42.480 for Alberta's silent majority. They're really silent, Gil, aren't they? So this ought to be

00:40:48.020 fun to watch. Fun to watch. It's the only thing, there's one of the things, I guess,

00:40:52.440 because like I said, I'm trying to be constructively critical of the Smith government,

00:40:55.840 because for the most part, I like them. And I certainly appreciate Danielle Smith in general.

00:41:01.000 She's, we're very close to each other ideologically, and I think she wants to do

00:41:05.140 the right things. But there's that temptation of just going with the flow or going with whatever

00:41:13.120 way you're pushed from the opposition. And the only opposition we have right now is coming from

00:41:18.080 the left. So that's when they're throwing money at issues rather than solving them, because that's

00:41:24.740 a left-wing approach to it. But look at the opposition. Nahed Menchie, he's failing brutally,

00:41:32.420 brutally people are still don't even really know who he is he's not grabbing the imagination of

00:41:36.960 Albertans the NDP is sinking in the polls which again kind of worries me a little because we've

00:41:43.680 got to make sure to keep a little fire under the government whether it's a government you like or

00:41:47.840 not and he's not doing that he's failing he's a terrible leader of the opposition uh Max Fawcett

00:41:54.460 if you really want to see uh leftist knob knobs uh he's a special sort of example of one but even

00:42:01.080 he has been coming out now and this is fun to kind of watch in a morbid sort of way they're starting

00:42:05.640 to call for nenshi to get out they're saying it's time you failed he didn't even get two years in

00:42:11.000 the leadership i think yet and the ndp is already saying yeah this isn't gonna work that's fine

00:42:16.200 let's let's watch the scrapping keep happening there but also at the same time we need some

00:42:22.840 pressure constructive pressure real opposition not just that constant we just oppose everything

00:42:29.160 you're doing, pressure. We need good opposition. That's what I like to think a free media can

00:42:35.440 provide. And something I said to a friend recently, I've said this multiple times. I think the most

00:42:42.160 conservative federal government we ever had in Canada was Jean Chrétien. And how so? Well,

00:42:49.080 it's because the Reform Party was breathing down his neck and that it was pressuring him

00:42:56.360 to get spending under control and uh that forced him to balance the budget but you see they will

00:43:03.560 respond to where their pressure is coming from and uh let's see we do have a call on the line

00:43:09.720 finally somebody's giving me a call my feelings were getting hurt there so let's wrap up the show

00:43:13.080 with a quick chat with whoever we got on the line there and and uh see what else is happening hello

00:43:18.040 who we got here uh it's christian hey christian how you doing hello yeah good how are you good

00:43:24.760 good we just got a couple minutes left i appreciate the call what you got to see i have a question

00:43:30.680 like um because albera government went like nine billion into the deficit how are they planning on

00:43:38.840 or like paying that off or like what is like is there even a plan or are they kind of just going

00:43:43.800 to keep deal with ottawa doesn't just constantly kick the can down the road and just raise deficit

00:43:49.320 can be like not our problem type deal do you know anything about that yeah well i mean i'm not inside

00:43:56.040 their rooms but it's a very good question and there's truth to it because we're supposed to be

00:43:59.080 better i think the plan was to kick it down the road and hope that oil prices rise and they kind

00:44:05.020 of got their wish so the oil prices went up but that's why that's part of why i was saying you

00:44:09.700 people like you people like me have got to keep the pressure on them and not let them get lazy

00:44:13.140 when the oil prices are high so that we don't have these later but it's a very good question i i they're

00:44:18.160 acting just like ottawa and i think they're kicking it down the road okay yeah i don't think

00:44:23.540 even if well i don't think all prices stay long for too much longer because like every war comes

00:44:30.020 at some point so hopefully sooner than later but yeah okay thank you no thank you i appreciate it

00:44:37.540 and you're right you know eventually the prices will come down somebody pointed that out not too

00:44:41.800 long ago i saw oil prices actually when they spike like this often will have a big crash later

00:44:47.600 so they shouldn't budget hoping that the prices are going to stay up. You see, we're getting

00:44:51.620 wisdom from the callers here. I wish Christian was sitting in the room with the premier

00:44:56.160 and pointing out that true common sense of just, guys, we're Albertans. We're supposed to be doing

00:45:03.160 better. So let's keep that opposition up, as I was saying, because we don't really have it coming

00:45:07.240 from the right. We don't have the pressure telling them, hey guys, get your spending under control.

00:45:12.380 okay I think that's the the time we got for today I appreciate the calls I appreciate the comments

00:45:17.900 coming in the scroll and again be sure to subscribe and watch the pipeline tonight it will be on

00:45:23.760 and uh as well you know Marty up north and other shows that are coming on stream subscribe to those

00:45:29.800 things like share all of that good stuff and uh we'll make Alberta a better place yet thank you

00:45:35.420 see you on the next one

00:45:42.380 Transcription by CastingWords

Western Standard - March 07, 2026

CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta’s budgetary shame

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript