Western Standard - CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta’s ridiculous high-speed internet scheme is robbing taxpayers

00:00:00.000 Good day.

00:00:28.380 welcome to the cory morgan show so we're moving our way into spring got a bit of a taste of it

00:00:33.900 though i'm certain our news editor will give me crap for the upcoming bad weather that's coming

00:00:37.100 along shortly that's just part of the weekly complaining routine i complain for a living

00:00:42.060 seems to work out well you guys like listening to it for the most part we got positive things

00:00:46.300 and stuff to cover and things happening out there today my guest a little while it's a

00:00:50.220 fellow named greg wilson he's an engineer and he'd written a great column on why your next

00:00:55.580 mayor should be an engineer sounds pretty self-serving and maybe sounds a little bit dry

00:00:59.440 but that's kind of the point uh we we we vote for the flash rather than the substance sometimes

00:01:05.080 and well we're paying they've seen the consequences of that uh with calgary uh you know a city of what

00:01:10.580 getting towards two million people that has gone through two different phases of if it's yellow

00:01:15.580 let it mellow not exactly uh points of pride in in local infrastructure lots of other things to

00:01:23.140 cover as well, but I'll get things going with my prime complaint of the day. So this was inspired

00:01:30.260 the other day. I saw a surveyor measuring the extent of my acreage from the outer edges there,

00:01:35.120 and I got a soft spot for surveyors. I was one for 20 years, so I wasn't too concerned. It could be

00:01:40.340 for a future road upgrade or something in the area. I was curious though, so I made some inquiries.

00:01:44.780 Turns out the area is being surveyed for a potential broadband internet provider,

00:01:48.520 and they're checking the home locations for potential relays. I couldn't help but roll my

00:01:52.800 eyes. Our community has had companies come and go, offering new internet systems almost annually

00:01:57.780 since I moved out to the country 14 years ago. And none of those came to fruition for a number

00:02:02.600 of reasons. So why do these companies keep doing it though? They're never going to have people

00:02:06.120 signing up to get them rolling, but they still keep going through these processes, town hall

00:02:10.300 meetings, surveys, measurements. Well, because taxpayers are getting soaked by them through

00:02:14.100 government high-speed internet schemes. My wife and I understood when we moved out to the country,

00:02:18.980 we're going to be sacrificing some conveniences. And that meant we wouldn't at that time have

00:02:23.680 ready access to high speed internet options. That's fine. There was a local broadband provider

00:02:28.680 at the time. They offered service. It was marginally better than dial-up and their support system was

00:02:33.080 on par with your typical phone provider, which is to say terrible. Then the TELUS hub came along

00:02:37.900 and for a while, you know, we switched to it for a while. It provided better service than that

00:02:41.720 broadband provider. But as all our neighbors all started switching to the hub as well,

00:02:45.540 the tower became overwhelmed and the hub became useless. Finally, in 2021, we heard that Starlink

00:02:50.720 Satellite Internet Service is going to become available for our area. We put ourselves on a

00:02:55.120 waiting list and spent $750 for the hardware. It took a year before the service arrived, but when

00:03:00.420 it did, it was a true game changer. We had ready access to service far superior than any local

00:03:05.860 options. Since then, speeds have only increased and the costs have come down. There's no longer

00:03:11.280 waiting list and a person can now get a dish for a couple hundred bucks. Nearly every home in our

00:03:15.780 area has a Starlink dish on the roof. Drive in rural areas, you see them everywhere. The rural

00:03:20.520 internet service issue has been solved. Not willing to let a good but slow-moving concept go to waste

00:03:26.200 though, the federal and provincial government of Alberta are still blowing a billion dollars

00:03:29.420 to bring outdated technology to rural homes throughout the province. I understand that fiber

00:03:34.380 optic internet provides faster service than satellite, but it's only feasible in areas where

00:03:38.840 is a degree of home density. Running those lines up to rural homes costs a fortune. Not only is

00:03:43.220 the government plan sinking a fortune into fiber optic lines, but it's subsidizing crappy broadband

00:03:47.380 services too, which are even worse than the satellite that's being offered. Nobody's going

00:03:51.580 to switch to these services, but the taxpayers get to pay for all that setup and hardware all the

00:03:55.680 same. In my area, the latest government-funded proposed internet provision incarnation is called

00:04:00.920 Mage Networks. They have been given 4.421 million tax dollars to service a potential 695 homes. Like

00:04:08.680 I said, we're not going to sign up for them. That's going to cost about $6,400 a home to offer

00:04:12.700 services that nobody wants. Did I mention everybody already has Starlink? It doesn't matter when the

00:04:18.200 government backstops your venture, though, does it? And it gets worse than that. In the county

00:04:22.340 of 40 Mile, wireless service is going to be set up to cover 81 homes. It's going to cost $30,555

00:04:31.020 each. And again, most of those homes already have Starlink and they have good cell service.

00:04:36.820 Oh, up north, fiber optic cables.

00:04:38.760 That's going to be run to 303 homes at a cost of $19,000 per home.

00:04:42.760 And that operation is going to be run by the Woodland Cree First Nation.

00:04:47.320 Yeah, they've taken up internet management now.

00:04:49.160 I can't imagine how well that's going to go.

00:04:51.280 There's duplication as well.

00:04:52.700 While Mage is getting millions to provide service to my area,

00:04:55.860 Explore is getting another $4.6 million to cover my area as well.

00:04:59.860 Did I mention my area has everybody already has satellite service?

00:05:02.900 This list goes on and on.

00:05:04.200 Service to Slave Lake Area, $37,000 per household. White Court Area, $25,000 per household. Clearwater

00:05:11.680 County, $32,000 per household. There's a link online showing all the government programs. You

00:05:17.340 can find all of these, and they're never going to be able to keep up with the technology.

00:05:21.480 Even if internet service was some sort of human right that taxpayers should be obligated to fund,

00:05:26.400 they should be doing so through the most cost-effective means possible. They could put

00:05:30.740 a Starlink dish on every house for $200 each and be done with it and it'd be finished in a year.

00:05:36.580 Over 95% of the province already has full high-speed service. There's no need to spend

00:05:40.720 a billion dollars to provide it to the tiny remainder who have mostly already switched

00:05:44.140 to Starlink anyways. These new providers, they're going to go bust. And I know I certainly won't be

00:05:49.160 giving up my satellite service for some new crappy wireless provider whenever it may finally become

00:05:53.280 active and neither are my neighbours going to. They may as well be stringing more cable for

00:05:57.460 telephone landlines what could the government cut that's a question that's often asked well here's

00:06:02.660 an easy one of course they won't though it's for the same old reason some well-connected people

00:06:07.540 who got the contracts from these programs are going to get very very rich from it all right

00:06:12.580 well it's got me ranting today to start things out how's it going dave it's going well how are you

00:06:17.060 good good you know what's coming uh later on this week uh what do we got snow oh i know snow and you

00:06:22.340 you know what's coming may 21st well that'll always be snow that's snow you can't even fault

00:06:27.300 me on that one i mean that's a tradition no so stop saying spring is around well it's close

00:06:32.340 i fed my bees the other day oh did you yeah they're very happy what did you feed them uh

00:06:36.260 sugar water okay yeah nice they're doing well awesome when's the honey coming i'd be another

00:06:41.380 couple months yet okay uh i hear jane is out shopping for gargoyles she might be

00:06:46.660 explain well yeah it's the old calgary herald downtown building that got torn down i think

00:06:53.860 like 1940 or something but it was there a piece of history in downtown calgary a cool building

00:06:58.820 and they had these these gargoyles actually they're called something else these things i

00:07:02.020 forget what it is again uh that got saved from the building before they tore it down

00:07:07.460 and stored in a warehouse forever in the city of calgary and finally they're putting them up for

00:07:11.300 auction and they're really cool looking i mean they have the typesetter and the news editor

00:07:15.780 to ride and all sorts of things, but they were 750 pounds each.

00:07:20.380 And, uh, my wife who loves impulse buys and auctions, I do fear.

00:07:25.020 I'm going to roll up to the house and see a picker truck unloading

00:07:27.240 a gargoyle onto our front lawn at some point.

00:07:29.400 Well, you can put several on there and turn yourself into like, uh, uh,

00:07:34.260 what's that Island, Easter Island.

00:07:35.640 Oh yes.

00:07:36.220 Yeah.

00:07:36.420 Just there in half way.

00:07:37.680 Easter Island and Brutus.

00:07:39.060 You could turn your place into a tourist trap, sell tickets, sell honey.

00:07:43.080 I'm already chasing surveyors away.

00:07:44.480 I don't know if I need more people visiting my little hideout in the little compound.

00:07:49.760 Awesome.

00:07:51.260 Well, we've got lots of news to talk about today, Corey. 0.50

00:07:54.500 We're leading off with a guy in Ontario, an Indian gentleman who came over here and ended up sexually assaulting very badly another Indian woman who had moved here.

00:08:08.160 And he basically told her, look, they're not going to believe you and I'm going to get away with this.

00:08:12.820 I know how the justice system works in Canada.

00:08:15.620 And he did.

00:08:16.260 He got away with it.

00:08:17.040 He was sentenced in absentia to seven years.

00:08:20.160 But the day he was convicted, he got an airplane,

00:08:23.140 sort of went across the border in Vermont

00:08:25.640 and got a flight back to Europe and then back to India.

00:08:28.480 So he's escaping justice.

00:08:31.860 Think HQ, Mark Henry, a well-known pollster,

00:08:35.340 has done one on MAID in Alberta.

00:08:37.840 Overwhelming number of people support MAID.

00:08:39.940 I think it's 76%.

00:08:41.560 but there's some concerns about the provincial government's bill

00:08:46.520 that is going to limit the scope of MAID.

00:08:49.880 People are concerned about that.

00:08:52.700 You'll be pleased to know one of Canada's most notorious gangsters,

00:08:56.800 Jamie Bacon, is back on the streets.

00:08:59.260 He was a conspirator in that Surrey 6 murder case back in the day

00:09:04.260 where six people were shot to death, including innocent witnesses.

00:09:08.740 So he's not well.

00:09:10.360 Yeah. And I saw, I read that story too. And he's got scumbag family members who have other convictions and a network of things that doesn't look very likely he's going to be a reformed, a good model citizen here.

00:09:21.660 No, either his brothers are dead and his other, you know, that's, they're real scumbags. 1.00

00:09:27.060 So that's for sure. 1.00

00:09:29.100 Doug Ford has sold his gravy plan.

00:09:32.580 He finally, you know, he has come across so badly on this in the last couple of days.

00:09:39.320 He, he buys a $29 million plane to, uh, to travel around and luxury.

00:09:44.760 And then he's surprised when taxpayers are overage and he's, he's, he's sulking.

00:09:50.840 He's petulant.

00:09:51.680 He's saying, well, you know, prime minister's got a plane.

00:09:54.480 Everybody's got a plan except me.

00:09:56.480 Oh, woe is me.

00:09:57.840 I never file expenses.

00:09:59.560 Anyways, they've sold it back to, uh, Bombardier for, for the same price,

00:10:03.920 29 million, and, uh, he'll have to take West jet whenever he flies.

00:10:07.880 and don't he fly his coach yeah i don't know about flying in the states these days it was another

00:10:12.840 close call their canada plane and uh american airlines plane over jfk to take evasive action

00:10:20.200 as they were uh sort of on a on a hit course and uh ctv the owner bell media was in parliament

00:10:29.160 yesterday saying they're they're losing 40 million dollars a year on local newscasts

00:10:33.560 and it's not sustainable and it's a crisis and give us more money, please.

00:10:38.960 Well, they'll probably get it.

00:10:40.240 Yeah, probably, probably.

00:10:42.040 So, busy day.

00:10:44.580 The province is going to announce their strategy on nuclear power at 3 o'clock

00:10:50.700 and Daniel Smith is giving a press conference on cancer care as we speak.

00:10:56.060 Okay, well, lots to cover.

00:11:00.560 As always.

00:11:01.400 Well, I'll let you get back to covering that and staying on those reporters.

00:11:05.640 And I guess, you know, enjoy the last few hours of this warm day before we return.

00:11:08.840 Yes, the rain is coming and snow is coming, thanks to you.

00:11:11.580 Okay, well, people always coach that, but look how good it is for the farmers.

00:11:18.160 At some point, the farmers got to have enough.

00:11:20.480 I don't think we all have.

00:11:21.960 One day.

00:11:22.780 One day.

00:11:23.220 All right, thanks, Dave.

00:11:24.080 You bet.

00:11:24.480 All right, that is our news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:11:26.520 Lots on the go, lots of stories, national, international, local.

00:11:30.060 and the reason we can do it is that reminder get on there because you guys have subscribed

00:11:34.380 westernstandard.news slash membership get on there it's 10 bucks a month 100 for a year

00:11:40.780 and you can get past the paywall and get straight through those stories and of course most

00:11:44.640 importantly help support those reporters and uh columnists that provide all that content out here

00:11:51.900 for you because you know ctv well they're begging government for more money i'm just begging you

00:11:56.860 guys for more money. You know, it's, uh, the better way to go with these things. All right.

00:12:02.840 Yeah. Lots happening out there. You know, the, the, the maid thing, medical assistance and dying,

00:12:10.120 it's such a rough discussion. I had, and I keep mentioning it and I've forgotten his name. It's

00:12:16.680 been a few years. I've done hundreds of shows, but the lawyer for Sue Rodriguez on, and, uh,

00:12:21.140 this was way back in the nineties when they were talking to, they called it outright,

00:12:24.080 just assisted suicide at that time a little more blunt but for people with chronic painful to do

00:12:29.280 conditions who just wanted to end it but wanted a medical assistance in doing it and he didn't even

00:12:36.880 a couple years ago envision where we'd be going with this maid though i they never for a second 0.78

00:12:42.320 thought it would be offered to somebody who solely has mental health issues as a condition depression

00:12:49.120 i mean there was one kid who uh you know i think it was diabetes he had and it was our

00:12:55.200 lindis lebodian who who reported on it exposed that uh because her parents were worried and

00:13:00.160 his parents were worried and he did turn around like diabetes and depression aren't enough reason

00:13:05.120 these are things that a person can work through i mean this made should only be available for the

00:13:12.000 incurable and i think most people agree with that that's what we're talking about though 70 i mean

00:13:18.240 people have seen loved ones die, particularly of degenerative or painful or awful diseases. I mean,

00:13:23.740 we don't all get to go out in our sleep in a pretty way. Unfortunately, it is an option,

00:13:29.920 I think, that's worth offering some people to make that choice, to go out how they want or

00:13:33.340 with dignity. But it has to be very carefully applied. And I don't think it's necessarily that

00:13:39.260 hard to figure out. Again, when it's terminal, when it's not going to be long, when there's

00:13:43.360 no standard of living, then allow that person. The other thing is don't push it on people.

00:13:47.260 that shouldn't be option one. We've got other areas with, uh, uh, religious-based palliative

00:13:53.840 care networks and places where it's the final days and they're watching people, but yeah,

00:13:57.660 the religious nature of those ones doesn't want to offer it and they're getting pressured to offer

00:14:03.480 it despite. Let's not, how can we ruin a, I don't know if I'd say a good thing, but you know what

00:14:10.120 I mean? Like we don't want to get rid of, or at least not, I don't agree in getting rid of

00:14:14.680 made altogether. It has a place. It has a reason. But at the same time, it has to have guardrails

00:14:20.340 and controls. And we're not seeing that. And that's a big, big concern. It's a very irreversible

00:14:27.040 thing. I see one of the commenters saying, great show. Hope Josh is doing well from John. Yes. And

00:14:35.040 he's sitting in as a producer today. So if there are any technical hangups or problems or everything

00:14:40.200 else, Josh's fault over there. And I will certainly call him out and blame him for it

00:14:45.360 harshly and never let him forget. But so far so good. It's been going great. I see our guest

00:14:49.900 in the lobby and let's bring him in. Let's talk about the exciting world of municipal

00:14:54.840 infrastructure engineering. This is Greg Wilson. He wrote, as I said, a great piece in the C2C

00:15:00.280 journal. Thanks for coming on to talk to us today, Greg. Thanks so much for having me.

00:15:04.280 So your piece was entitled, I think, why our next mayor needs to be an engineer. And I think that kind of applies to municipalities anywhere. And it was really great, actually, how you broke it down. The reality is, I mean, I catch it. I say it sounds like a bit of a technical and boring conversation, but that's part of the problem and why things have been let to atrophy and get into such bad condition. So maybe just kind of lay out what inspired you to write this.

00:15:29.820 Absolutely. I myself am an engineer. I've worked as a civil engineer specifically in restoration engineering for about 15 years. So I see this every day. And it was a few months ago that I decided to start speaking about it publicly and writing about it and having these kind of conversations with people like yourself publicly.

00:15:51.240 To me, municipal governments touch our day-to-day life

00:15:54.760 and we need to have the right people in place

00:15:57.200 making the right decisions.

00:15:59.160 And unfortunately to date, that largely hasn't happened.

00:16:02.700 Yeah, well, and I mean,

00:16:03.540 so it's just the nature of politics.

00:16:05.260 Our politicians, particularly municipal,

00:16:08.380 look, everybody wants to leave a legacy.

00:16:09.920 They want to have a ribbon cutting

00:16:10.900 or the park that's been named after them

00:16:12.580 or even a rail line, you know,

00:16:15.320 or light rail or something

00:16:16.620 where they can say they've really helped things.

00:16:18.360 nobody thinks about sewage or water supplies, though that's really the basis of a municipality.

00:16:25.720 Those are some of the most important core areas, and we never hear about it.

00:16:29.420 Absolutely. And I think a big problem in Canada as large is we are solely dependent on the social

00:16:36.820 systems. And we just assume that these systems are always going to be working for us. And that's not

00:16:42.620 always the case. And so we need the right decision makers, like I said, in place. But

00:16:48.180 I think a lot of people are just complacent that the water just is always going to run and that

00:16:53.620 your toilet is always going to flush. And in cases like Calgary, where that hasn't been the case,

00:16:59.080 it becomes hugely problematic very quickly for people. And it can lead to very serious

00:17:04.440 societal problems too. Oh yeah, this goes well beyond Calgary too. I noticed your piece says

00:17:09.600 of Canada has, what, an estimated 470,000 kilometers of underground water lines. I guess

00:17:15.280 that can vary everywhere from a little transmission one to some major ones, but that's a heck of

00:17:20.780 a lot of buried infrastructure that, let's face it, is starting to get on in age.

00:17:25.720 Absolutely. And in 2019, a report was done, a Canadian infrastructure report was completed by

00:17:32.500 a conglomerate of engineers and engineering societies, and it had very poor grade for Canada.

00:17:39.860 And that came out in 2019 and has much been done since. No, Calvary is a highlight. And at 470,000

00:17:47.900 kilometers is a prime example. We have an immense amount of infrastructure in Canada, and that's

00:17:54.100 been paid very little attention to. And as I outlined in the article, a lot of this infrastructure

00:17:59.580 is put into the ground never to be seen or heard from again and it's sort of the classic out of

00:18:04.820 sight out of mind mentality and unfortunately that doesn't work when it's critical infrastructure

00:18:09.740 yeah well and another aspect people want to talk about even less than the water going in but it's

00:18:14.740 the water going out and it's not just calgary or north america or you know canada has a problem

00:18:19.740 you pointed out the washington example where effluent leaked in a massive amount and that

00:18:25.480 but poses a huge public health risk

00:18:28.260 and an environmental catastrophe.

00:18:30.780 How old are our sewage pipes getting in our cities?

00:18:33.640 Same age, you know, in Edmonton where I live,

00:18:36.380 a lot of the infrastructure was built, you know,

00:18:38.580 a hundred plus years ago in some areas.

00:18:41.540 And, you know, a huge build out happened

00:18:43.540 in the sixties and seventies.

00:18:44.760 So the water pipe is aging every, on all levels.

00:18:48.860 And it was found out the PCC pipe in Calgary,

00:18:52.480 that was the issue.

00:18:54.000 That was a problem sort of decade from 1972 to 1984.

00:18:58.440 All of that pipe throughout North America

00:19:00.560 was massively problematic for both water and wastewater.

00:19:05.100 You know, the city of San Diego in the States too

00:19:07.020 has had massive ruptures and issues with their water,

00:19:11.040 both water and wastewater distribution system.

00:19:14.560 So this isn't a Canadian problem.

00:19:16.000 This isn't a municipal problem.

00:19:17.500 This is a massive North American problem

00:19:19.720 that's been overlooked largely.

00:19:23.000 And it's something that's so critical.

00:19:24.680 However, in Canada, like I said, it's even more critical because we as a society in our socialized country depend solely on it.

00:19:32.060 We don't have other suppliers to provide us water or wastewater.

00:19:36.200 And when wastewater goes wrong, it goes very wrong for our watersheds.

00:19:40.340 Absolutely.

00:19:41.100 Well, I mean, in a micro version of it, I live on an acreage and I have a septic system that I had to spend a lot of money to rebuild because when that failed, it wasn't pretty.

00:19:50.100 It's just to say that.

00:19:52.080 and that's just one household so if you get a million houses suddenly flooding uh an area with

00:19:56.400 that it could be bad getting on to the solution in the things though i guess i mean part of what

00:20:01.560 you covered is is this has been reported you know the calgary uh investigation found that they've

00:20:07.920 been there've been warning flags put up they've talked about this over years or in waterloo you

00:20:12.260 pointed out you know they've been running right on the edge of capacity for a long time and again

00:20:16.420 the guys in the plants and so on i think are telling city officials hey guys we got something

00:20:21.860 coming uh but they're being listened to is there ways we could change policy maybe to make it so

00:20:27.140 that this reporting is public or something to force the issue to happen absolutely and i think

00:20:32.180 there's there's a huge misinformation and my interview that i included in the article with

00:20:37.300 tim cartmel who was a former counselor here in edmonton and ran for mayor last year pointed

00:20:42.420 out that generally council is full of generalists and like you said at the outset they want to cut

00:20:46.580 ribbons they want to name buildings after themselves and pat themselves on the back

00:20:51.700 and they don't i think i think a big part of it is they don't understand what they don't understand

00:20:57.140 and it's easier to glorify these passion projects than it is to talk about maybe things that they

00:21:03.940 fully don't don't comprehend or that are truly out of sight out of mind so i think it's many things

00:21:10.660 i think we have to educate the electorate and that was really what i wanted to do with this article

00:21:14.980 is to have people understand that it's a very complicated system to get water to your tap

00:21:19.700 we also have to make sure that we are uh with that information we are making the correct decisions at

00:21:25.700 the ballot box and unfortunately the election in edmonton uh last fall did not i don't think

00:21:31.300 go very well for the city of edmonton and for future and for our infrastructure and then it

00:21:36.500 has to be hugely um a massive sort of like public disclosure of the of the systems that we have and

00:21:44.180 the right people managing those systems yeah and then some of it also kind of ties in and it always

00:21:50.660 does in politics or in that world with a little bit of ideology going on densification has been

00:21:55.700 a big push for most municipalities they want to take down the old houses stick in some infills

00:22:01.380 keep building upwards but often they aren't expanding the underground infrastructure to be

00:22:06.820 able to handle that denser intake and we've got some politicians well motivated on never wanting

00:22:12.660 to put up any roadblocks that might stop any of that densification uh is there ways though that

00:22:17.540 are cost effective to upgrade i guess those utilities in those older areas that are densifying

00:22:22.740 how could we avoid over pressuring existing stuff it's a huge problem and i think a lot of this um

00:22:29.780 infill scope that came out i mean it's it's pushed by cmhc and the federal government and all levels

00:22:36.100 and it has massive ramifications for municipalities and the citizens that live in them like i said in

00:22:41.860 the article you know the cities and municipalities were designed in the past for growth for expansion

00:22:48.100 but not for one house in a single family neighborhood being turned into 10 properties

00:22:52.740 which is happening just down the street from me and so that kind of densification has massive

00:22:57.860 ramifications and all of this infrastructure is below our houses our roads our um waterways too

00:23:04.500 So it's very challenging to address it and to improve them.

00:23:10.780 And also, too, for wastewater specifically, if you have too large up a pipe that doesn't have enough flow through it,

00:23:16.240 it actually is worse in some cases because the H2S and the methodologies within the wastewater can actually deteriorate the concrete faster.

00:23:25.080 So we have to size things up properly and fix things properly.

00:23:28.880 But it is a huge money taker from our budget.

00:23:34.000 And I think a big solution potential is to maybe do more localized treatment facilities, waste water treatment facilities.

00:23:40.660 Instead of relying on this massive distribution system, we rely on a much smaller distribution system that's maybe community driven.

00:23:49.660 So one of your solutions, that's kind of the base of your article in the title, though, is getting engineers or at least people with some knowledge of these IABs to get in and run for public office.

00:23:59.160 You made clear that's not where you're looking to go.

00:24:01.800 But I mean, there's one of the challenges.

00:24:03.420 I see that in the oil field too. We got engineers, they hit the top levels of oil companies.

00:24:07.980 Engineers are a special breed. I mean, we appreciate you guys. You do very important

00:24:12.420 things that are fantastic, but at that same time, you're not necessarily the most outgoing folks.

00:24:18.200 I don't want to throw stereotypes. There's all kinds of engineers, or people that are interested

00:24:22.600 in going into elected office. You don't get your degree in engineering with an intent of going into

00:24:27.620 those sorts of positions. So how do we, I guess, bring in some of those people into our councils?

00:24:32.800 how do we encourage them to come in and put their names forward so we can get a better skill set in

00:24:36.820 there? Absolutely. I think that's a huge problem. And I think there is this notion. I think I'm a

00:24:43.680 relatively atypical engineer. I see the gray area a little bit more in my softer skills too. But I

00:24:50.320 think at the root of it, engineers are problem solvers. And that's who we need running municipalities

00:24:54.820 and these governments. And we need people who are driven by rationality and not passion to run

00:25:01.500 these systems and so I think a part of it is having engineers at a consulting level that can

00:25:07.320 educate and inform properly having maybe the management or ownership of these infrastructures

00:25:12.620 like a sort of a system like EPCOR does here in Edmonton where the experts are in control of the

00:25:17.980 day-to-day running of it but still even at the decision-making level we need people who are

00:25:22.920 informed and whether that's an educational piece a consultant who is there for counsel to answer

00:25:28.740 questions, to explain things to council, to urge and make them understand the importance of these

00:25:34.740 things. That's really what we need to go back to. And I think we really need to go back to the

00:25:38.520 basics. I mean, we got so far in the left field in the recent years with sustainability and DEI

00:25:44.320 measures that took massive funding away from our critical infrastructure. And we need to refocus

00:25:49.800 that immediately to get back on the right track. Well, I think part of that could be making sure

00:25:54.940 with these utilities the politicians can't get their grubby fingers on it in the first place

00:25:58.860 you pointed out again showed with calgary the water utility people pay their water bills and

00:26:03.620 it's led to uh surpluses that the city of calgary has been quietly siphoning out of there over a

00:26:10.180 hundred million dollars a year for a decade you know people are in shock now at the cost of what

00:26:15.440 it's going to cost to fix that infrastructure well if we'd have been spending that hundred

00:26:18.600 million a year on keeping this stuff up we probably wouldn't have seen geysers in the middle of uh

00:26:24.000 bonus in the middle of winter but of course then they wouldn't be able to dedicate that money as

00:26:28.020 you said to weird dei projects and vanity projects exactly but what would we be without bike lanes

00:26:34.140 you know and that 100 million dollars a year could have gone to massive improvements and upgrades and

00:26:41.900 everything necessary i mean waterloo like you pointed out they basically have no more water

00:26:45.760 and they knew that their water treatment facility was aging you know so they should have been

00:26:50.040 spending the money there. And when you see these things come out, like in this article that Calgary

00:26:54.920 has been siphoning off $100 million a year from this critical infrastructure to other things,

00:27:00.240 that's the problem. And that's the piece that we really need to have people woken up to and really

00:27:06.140 hold the councils and the mayor's feet to the fire to make sure that they're making the appropriate

00:27:11.800 decisions. I mean, I see like the sustainability thing is a massive passion project for me to

00:27:17.560 educate people on the the risk that it presents and the amount of money that it is taken away

00:27:24.040 from our critical infrastructure is incredible so uh somebody broke out of the mold and you

00:27:30.760 showed a positive example in regina a mayor has been elected with an engineering background and

00:27:37.160 as his campaign uh has been to address these sorts of issues has he been making good progress on that

00:27:42.920 so far he has generally and we had a great conversation uh while i was writing this article

00:27:47.560 and it was great to talk to someone who is an engineer and has that kind of mindset but also

00:27:52.440 his managerial skills obviously to be a mayor i mean he took his project management skills um to

00:27:58.680 a much broader uh scope being the the mayor of regina and it seems like they're on the right

00:28:04.120 track and they just released um a few months ago a new policy and strategic growth plan for the city

00:28:11.560 of Regina that really addresses a lot of this scope, that they are only doing infills and

00:28:18.600 upgrades to apartments and other densification in key areas where the infrastructure already exists

00:28:25.720 or can be easily accessible to upgrade properly. And I think that's a perfect example of the

00:28:31.480 practicality that engineers and the mindset of engineers bring to a municipality.

00:28:37.840 So one other element, just to kind of wrap things up that you didn't cover too much in this, but you can speak to as an engineer, what about means of conservation?

00:28:44.740 Like we've been pretty wasteful with how we use water as consumers.

00:28:48.380 We're spraying treated water on our lawns.

00:28:50.760 We're not necessarily making sure that we're not leaking in our toilets or our households, things like that.

00:28:56.780 Good common sense things we could do.

00:28:59.480 Is there room to change, I guess, some of the way consumers and the way it's provided so that it can encourage just less use of water?

00:29:07.160 Absolutely. And this is the sustainability piece that I wish we had focused on instead of solar farms and wind turbines. I wish that we had looked at actually practical things like water. And I have preached for years, and now it's starting to publicly, that we need to address water. Without water, we have nothing. Without proper treatment of water, we have nothing. We've destroyed our watersheds. And we've seen this in other countries in the world, and we can't get to that point.

00:29:34.860 So it's understanding what I call true sustainability, sustainability that actually affects our day to day, more so than putting solar panels on our roof.

00:29:44.660 We need to look at exactly what you're saying, like what we're putting on our lawns as reaching our watershed.

00:29:49.700 And part of that is education that people need to understand that all of that runs downhill.

00:29:54.920 The water runs downhill and that dilution is no longer an effective solution to dealing with runoff and wastewater and all of those issues.

00:30:03.820 And this goes on and on and on and on, like looking at PFAS and other chemicals that we're putting in our water just with our dishwasher pods, for example, and microplastics.

00:30:13.000 And there's so much there that we should be focusing on that's actual sustainability and actual resiliency of our systems.

00:30:19.560 That's not led by DEI and the sort of woke narrative we've been under the guise of for so long.

00:30:26.420 Yeah, I think most conservatives like good common sense conservation, not bizarre aspirational $87 billion climate change plans like former Mayor Gondek threw at us out here. I could go on a whole separate show on that. I think I have.

00:30:41.900 All right. Well, we've run that time out. I really appreciate actually coming on to talk about this because it's the unsung story that we don't talk about until the water is jetting up from underground and everybody's then suddenly yelling, why didn't anybody warn me it was coming? Well, here you are, you're warning us and you're offering solutions. So I appreciate that. People won't have that excuse to say they weren't told.

00:31:02.860 You know, before I let you go, you've written in C2C Journal.

00:31:05.680 Where else can we find your work and what you're up to?

00:31:08.680 Yeah, on YouTube and on Substack.

00:31:11.020 My name is Libertas Talks, where I talk about all sorts of random things,

00:31:14.960 but from a perspective of freedom and practicality.

00:31:18.820 So thanks so much.

00:31:20.100 All right. Excellent. Great. Thank you.

00:31:21.560 I look forward to seeing more of your writings on this.

00:31:23.920 It's important. And actually, it's not all that dry once you read it.

00:31:26.840 It's actually pretty interesting stuff.

00:31:29.020 Thanks so much. Have a good day.

00:31:30.220 thank you so once more guys that's greg wilson he's a professional engineer and we're talking

00:31:34.960 about a story in c2c journal that he put out and i think there was a smaller version on the western

00:31:39.120 standard of it as well and let's see that title if you want to search it out because it's a long

00:31:43.020 one and it's a really good read it says busted flush why your next mayor should be an engineer

00:31:49.680 and part of the whole conversation altogether and this is a problem with city councils all over the

00:31:56.760 place, they, they should have a simple mandate. They step so far out of the tracks of where they

00:32:02.760 should be. And then they neglect the core items that just about everybody agrees they should be

00:32:07.720 doing. Garbage collection, policing, you know, emergency services, water, of course, sewer.

00:32:15.560 But I mean, I remember in Calgary, a few years back, city council spent a solid week fighting 0.96

00:32:20.040 over whether or not to regulate a certain type of fish soup in Chinatown. I wish I was making a joke 1.00

00:32:25.440 about that. That's where these guys go. And again, they want their pretty objects. They want their

00:32:30.060 waste. In Calgary, what, another $7 million or something, or was it spent, or how many millions,

00:32:34.880 like I could be getting that one wrong, to set up a new shrine to the residential school thing.

00:32:39.580 And there was never any residential schools in Calgary because they needed to do something to

00:32:43.680 get a bunch of shoes and stuffies off of the city hall's front steps. They were all put there when 1.00

00:32:48.840 the 215 child burial hoax came out of Kamloops residential school. These cowardly city councils 0.97

00:32:56.400 more concerned about being woke and virtue signaling and neglecting the thing they were 0.97

00:33:03.240 put there for in the first place. And they step in on all sorts of other areas, providing social

00:33:11.080 housing, things like that, that really wasn't in their wheelhouse. And it gets integrated.

00:33:15.780 And that's one of the areas where we allow federal control into our municipal governments.

00:33:22.080 This was an interesting one that confused a lot of people, I think, and they got upset.

00:33:25.820 But where Premier Smith was kind of trying to stand between and say, no more deals cut between municipalities and the federal government.

00:33:31.440 That's not, you're not supposed to bridge that and get over there.

00:33:34.840 Because the federal government then uses that ability to push their social engineering upon the municipalities.

00:33:41.720 And an example, are those transfers going towards housing in cities?

00:33:45.780 because the federal government says, we're going to give you a hundred million dollars to the city

00:33:49.120 to help you with housing and infrastructure and things. But there's always strings. They always

00:33:54.200 say, but you've got to do this density target, or you've got to do that policy, or you've got to do

00:33:58.180 this, or you've got to do that. And then if anybody complains about these policies, they say, well,

00:34:03.260 we'd be throwing away that money from the government. We can't risk having that investment

00:34:06.920 coming in. That's what they're talking about with the density discussions in Calgary when they did

00:34:10.460 the mass rezoning. They said, well, we might lose all those Ottawa dollars. Well, then our system

00:34:17.940 is broken. If our cities aren't allowed to do their planning as they please, as their mandate

00:34:23.980 says, because they would lose federal dollars, they'd become dependent on them. We got to be

00:34:28.580 asking why our cities are dependent on those federal dollars. Why is the federal government

00:34:31.760 stepping in on these municipal issues? So we really, and I know it's easier said than done,

00:34:40.460 We got to get people in office and that's what Greg was saying that are going to focus on these

00:34:46.220 core issues that are more important, even if they're not that exciting, even if they're not

00:34:49.240 that romantic and get back to those basics. Just want to make sure our garbage is getting picked

00:34:54.560 up. You know, we want to make sure our sewage isn't leaching into our underground areas or even worse

00:35:00.380 boiling up on our streets like the freshwater supplies were, you know, are the buses running?

00:35:06.280 policing? You know, how about Crackhead Alley downtown? There's a lot of big issues that they

00:35:12.960 could spend a whole heck of a lot of time on. In fact, they should. And changing the type of

00:35:18.620 person running for these positions would be a way to do it. And it was great to see, as I said,

00:35:23.240 the mayor of Regina, he ran on infrastructure and those issues. And guess what? They're not

00:35:27.720 necessarily as unexciting as one would think because it won an election. So let's get back

00:35:32.680 to the world of the walkie. Justice. This is great. Just great. We get a judge and we've seen

00:35:39.860 these stories constantly. And I've talked about that. I've written columns on this. Or if you're

00:35:44.340 not familiar with the Gladue principles, basically, I'm not going to go through the whole thing. It

00:35:48.540 came about 20 some years ago, saying that we have to take indigenous status into effect when

00:35:55.700 sentencing in jail, basically give them lower sentences whenever possible, because there's

00:35:59.940 overcrowding or over-representation of Indigenous people in the jails, they thought, well, if we

00:36:03.640 just don't sentence them, it won't become a problem. Well, since then, they have still managed 1.00

00:36:07.900 to overpopulate the prison system because it doesn't address the social problems underneath

00:36:11.920 it. But worst of all, it's letting some very dangerous people loose when they shouldn't be.

00:36:18.360 In the end, it's victimizing, here's the irony, the Indigenous people themselves, because most

00:36:22.840 of the violent Indigenous offenders offended against other Indigenous people. There's some

00:36:27.380 of the good IREA with your MMIW. Most of it was other indigenous folks who made the MMIWs out 1.00

00:36:33.220 there. Let's address that. Let's look at the social thing. But instead, we did this. The judge 1.00

00:36:39.020 said colonization, of course, was the reason an indigenous man got a reduced sentence for

00:36:45.860 choking a toddler. He strangled a baby. And the judge thinks, well, yeah, but colonization. So

00:36:53.800 Let's let him out earlier and maybe just hope he doesn't get his hands on any more kids, I guess.

00:36:58.700 This we hear all the time, particularly with sex offenders coming.

00:37:02.780 Enough.

00:37:03.880 Enough.

00:37:04.620 I don't care about the colonization. 0.99

00:37:06.400 I don't care about the settlerhood. 0.81

00:37:07.880 All I care about is these are identified dangerous people who have committed bloody crimes and they should stay behind bars and they don't care what color they are. 0.97

00:37:14.900 Public safety has to be paramount.

00:37:17.780 What is it?

00:37:18.640 Here's another beauty. 1.00

00:37:19.500 This one isn't indigenous. 0.98

00:37:20.660 Don't worry. 0.99

00:37:21.180 I mean, the race-based policies we seem to have in our justice system

00:37:27.500 aren't just for the Gladue cases, so that's the worst of it. 0.89

00:37:31.920 This one here, Canadian terrorist.

00:37:33.480 Some might remember he burst into a recruitment service 0.90

00:37:35.840 and stabbed soldiers in Canada.

00:37:39.440 Ali Hassan did this in 2016 in Toronto,

00:37:44.480 attacks and stabbed a bunch of people.

00:37:46.760 He said Allah told him to do it. 1.00

00:37:48.660 Yeah, Allah's a prick. 0.96

00:37:49.500 and he has been let out. 1.00

00:37:53.200 He's been loose since then.

00:37:54.520 Very, very dangerous man.

00:37:56.100 And now he's going to be flying to Saudi Arabia

00:38:00.700 to do a pilgrimage in Mecca.

00:38:02.620 And then he's going to Somalia for an arranged marriage.

00:38:05.520 I guess they found a cousin for him.

00:38:07.920 Why is this man not in jail? 1.00

00:38:09.220 He's a lunatic. 1.00

00:38:09.940 He's a terrorist. 1.00

00:38:10.740 He stabs people. 1.00

00:38:12.180 No, he's going over to get some poor young woman 1.00

00:38:14.460 who's been arranged as a marriage

00:38:16.560 so he can, I don't know,

00:38:18.000 do whatever he's going to do to her.

00:38:19.500 yeah why well it was brought into account his his he's been talking to an imam in jail he's

00:38:26.060 feeling much more settled because nothing helps a person become more settled and peaceful than

00:38:31.500 a better immersion in islam right that's been working all around the world real well how about 0.56

00:38:36.280 this why don't we just make his ticket a one-way one and you can stay the hell over there that

00:38:40.020 would be nice wouldn't it no we can't do that this is canada what are some of the other beauties

00:38:46.200 Has anybody seen our new rocket launch site there out on the East Coast?

00:38:51.200 Newfoundland, oh no, that's a different one I'm looking at.

00:38:53.300 Here's other East Coast things.

00:38:54.740 Newfoundland, Labrador's got a thing going on as well.

00:38:57.040 But yeah, there's a launch pad that out in the East Coast, I think it's Nova Scotia, actually.

00:39:02.960 These scammers, if you look into it, there's a good article on it out there.

00:39:07.500 They've got a $200 million lease on this chunk of barren land.

00:39:11.520 all it's got's a gravel road up to a concrete pad and they're calling it the next cape canaveral

00:39:17.040 they're going to be launching rockets from there the whole property itself is worth maybe 18 million

00:39:24.160 dollars if they just bought it but instead we're going to lease it for 200 million dollars

00:39:29.440 because canada wants its own little rocket land because we don't want to be relying on the united

00:39:33.360 states for it but there's other problems there's a reason other countries lease space near the

00:39:39.840 equator for their launch sites because up north it doesn't work out all that well but that doesn't

00:39:44.560 stop again these stories that keep coming whether it's in alberta with internet setups or rocket

00:39:50.640 pads or arrive can app items there's just a whole lot of people making a whole lot of money out of

00:39:57.120 your tax dollars for these handouts that are being given and the names of the people involved in that

00:40:01.920 rocket pad out in nova scotia have some pretty shady history already some have you know had

00:40:09.280 issues and licenses pulled and things like that but off we go right brilliant brilliant uh feisty

00:40:15.760 fry saying you know alberta independence is the way to go yes i believe so i've talked about that

00:40:20.640 but we got to remember we got to be better than them and that's why i wanted to start my rant out

00:40:24.560 talking about this internet thing because hey you know what our provincial governments can be just

00:40:27.520 as bad as the federal ones we need better controls so if we're going to become independent let's have

00:40:32.880 those discussions make sure why would we be better or are we going to be making a smaller version of

00:40:36.400 of what we just left. Got to clean up our own act. In fact, selling independence will be a heck of a

00:40:40.620 lot easier if we can keep the high horse when it comes to that. Okay, back to DEI. Yeah, this is a

00:40:48.400 beauty. Newfoundland and Labrador is only university. Has five academic job postings.

00:40:55.820 Yet, they explicitly say, no straight white men. No straight white men. You have these jobs only.

00:41:03.680 There's no way they're going to hire anybody unless they fall under the 2SLGBTQIA plus people. 1.00

00:41:11.600 No NMIW, I guess, in that one or whatever and whatever other symbols they want to stick in. 1.00

00:41:15.680 If you are not one of those, you will not be hired.

00:41:19.120 Don't waste your time.

00:41:19.860 Don't even show up.

00:41:21.800 This is good.

00:41:22.480 This is really the institutions of higher education.

00:41:25.000 This is going to make our next generation come up better.

00:41:27.360 And these positions at the university are in programs of AI-driven navigation,

00:41:35.500 computational biochemistry, genomic mapping, indigenous knowledge,

00:41:40.220 community health, and substance use.

00:41:44.040 Well, I don't know.

00:41:44.980 I mean, I think if you're an applicant and you still want to go for one of these things

00:41:47.680 and everything else, just swallow a little pride and use AI.

00:41:53.420 You can do all sorts of things with your pictures just if you need to even prove that

00:41:56.500 and just tell them you're gay or bisexual show a couple pictures you created see look at this look

00:42:01.160 at this stuff i did in college i'm one of the letters you got there so i can now qualify to 0.72

00:42:06.240 get it it's sad that you have to do that but it's easier to get away with falsely identifying as

00:42:12.460 lgbtqia plus and all that than trying to falsely identify as black they usually see right through

00:42:17.480 that one though i wouldn't put it beyond them to get confused with that one too but this is where

00:42:21.680 we're going so this is being our kids are going to be getting a better education of course not

00:42:25.500 because they're hiring based on where somebody lands on their woke DEI victimhood alphabet.

00:42:33.920 We need to move on to a full private education system. We do an in post-secondary as well. Just

00:42:39.120 keep all that crap out of it. Let people choose on getting the best they can. Finally, here's 0.99

00:42:44.760 another beauty. Canada's RCMP, and this is in the Western Standard Story, partnering with the

00:42:49.400 Chinese police. They're very secret about what that means exactly in partnering with the Chinese

00:42:55.360 police. Now, people seem to forget China is a communist dictatorship that has no interest

00:43:04.960 in human rights. And they've been victimizing Chinese immigrants to Canada. People even have

00:43:11.660 Canadian citizenship. They've been threatening them, antagonizing them. And they've had those

00:43:16.500 Chinese police stations on Canadian soil, intimidating them. That's how they've been 1.00

00:43:21.780 their election interference and things and everything how if they're approached if there's

00:43:25.620 people who've come here from china and then find out they're getting pressured by chinese agents

00:43:32.820 over here what are they going to do go to the rcmp well the rcmp are partnered with the chinese

00:43:38.820 communist police as well so you're not feeling safe going anywhere brilliant mr carney look i'm

00:43:46.580 not one of those people say we should have no relations with china whatsoever we got economic

00:43:49.860 realities. China supplies us with a massive amount of goods. It's a big trading partner. To shut it

00:43:57.080 all off altogether would be really problematic. But we also have to put up some pretty big guard

00:44:02.000 rails when we deal with them. One of which is having our national police force having absolutely

00:44:07.520 nothing to do with those communists. Partnering with them? For what? Are the RCMP going to help 0.60

00:44:14.180 identify which ones to target? Hey, look at this guy over here. He hasn't been saying the right

00:44:18.860 things what what on earth is the rcp going to partner with them about yet here they are uh

00:44:26.540 one other thing follow alex zoltan he's our bc reporter it's been something else to watch david

00:44:31.180 eby he's been flopping like an epileptic fish out of water under a strobe light trying to figure out

00:44:37.580 what to do with his dripa and indigenous policy this blowing up in his own face you want to see 1.00

00:44:42.380 government at its worst in immersing itself in a bunch of dei woke crap and garbage particularly 0.99

00:44:48.300 and indigenous issues look at all the joy david eby and the unfortunate british colombians who 0.99

00:44:52.940 are stuck under his leadership are dealing with over there right now zoltan's been doing a great

00:44:57.260 job covering all of that all right well that's what i've got for today i think josh he got

00:45:02.380 through this without screwing up i really appreciate that and thank all of you guys for

00:45:06.620 tuning in be sure to follow the pipeline that's going to be on a little later this evening and

00:45:11.020 like and share all of those things there's all sorts of productions coming out hannaford and

00:45:14.700 lioda stuff get on there the western standard channels this is the source for news for you guys

00:45:20.620 so uh thanks again for tuning in we'll see you next week at this time

00:45:44.700 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - April 27, 2026

CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta’s ridiculous high-speed internet scheme is robbing taxpayers

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