CORY MORGAN SHOW: Canada can’t afford free housing
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Summary
School Board Trustee candidate Jennifer Stewart joins me to talk about her campaign and her vision for the future of our schools and public services. We also talk about the government's 13 billion dollar housing initiative and why the federal government should get out of the housing business.
Transcript
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Cory Morgan show it's my weekly opportunity to get everything off my chest cover a few of what I
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feel are the top stories of the day interview some interesting people and you know solve the
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world's problems we pack that all into 45 minutes thanks for tuning in it's a beautiful fall day out
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there for folks in Alberta maybe everywhere I don't know we didn't get much of a summer but I
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can't complain about the September so far I mean I'll complain about all sorts of things but I
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won't hit on the weather today anyways another good show coming up here in a bit uh my guest
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coming on is is school board trustee candidate Jennifer Stewart and I know people say oh
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school board trustees well look what's been going on guys we've we've got porn showing up in school
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libraries we've got a school board and open rebellion up in Edmonton and whose fault's all
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that well actually it's ours because we never pay attention to those school board trustee elections
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and let the nutcases get into power so uh Jennifer's gonna share a lot with us and how that works and
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what's going on what her campaign's on and maybe you know encourage more folks to seek it out so
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perhaps we can get a better crop of trustees in there we'll see all right let's get started on a
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policy thing what's got me wound up right now Mark Carney always announced the big fanfare is 13
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billion dollar housing initiative and it highlights everything that's wrong with the Canadian system
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and why things aren't going to be improving under the Carney government I mean to begin with it proves
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Carney's claims that he's going to streamline the government and reduce the bureaucracy to be hollow
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the Trudeau government nearly doubled the civil service over 10 years Carney implied the growth
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was unsustainable and he's going to get the bloat under control but then he announces a new agency
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was going to employ hundreds if not thousands more civil servants not one of which will swing a hammer
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to actually help build a home speaking of efficiency the estimated cost per unit under Carney's plan is
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going to be over three million dollars each affordable indeed Carney dared to use the term austerity when
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referring to his upcoming budget but he keeps spawning new spending initiatives of the scope like
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the housing plan if he keeps doing that he's going to blow by that record hundred billion dollar
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deficit that some people are predicting already he's making Trudeau look outright miserly in comparison
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now the housing initiative lands 100 outside of federal jurisdiction it's not the role of the
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federal government to build homes it never has been or should it ever be the provinces are responsible
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for housing and even then the government should only be creating the environment to facilitate home
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construction not building houses directly the federal government's pushing ever more deeply into
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jurisdictions where it doesn't belong and it only creates more regional conflicts and inefficiency
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and program delivery the federal government spent over six billion dollars to develop a website
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to make government services easier to access this is how good they are they've been trying to build
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this site for eight years now and estimate it might be fully available by 2030 the same government took a
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pipeline that should have cost four and a half billion to build and ballooned the cost of 34 billion
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dollars while delaying the construction for years do you really want them to take over housing too
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you know i recently posted an image of a sea of decrepit housing projects from the soviet era
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on x along with a comment on how this is what's putting well this is what putting the state in charge of
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housing is going to lead to i was kind of distressed by how many young fools got upset and made the case that
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such housing was wonderful and how the communists ended homelessness they also ended over 100 million
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lives but who's counting you know if they're dead you don't need to house them it's frightening to
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think we have an up-and-coming generation are truly clueless about the horrors of communism and think the
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trade-off between general prosperity and freedom is worth it if it came with what they think is free
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housing in a concrete block slum also lost upon them is the rationing and misery that came with state
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housing waiting lists were part of the game in getting a home and to get repairs bribery was
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usually the order of the day these modern day marxists so they kept making the case that
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government guilt built ghettos are still superior to the tent cities that grace every city in north
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america look people risk their lives to escape the hell of communist nations but that's been forgotten
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if it was so damn great communist countries wouldn't have had to lock their citizens in
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also ignored is that those tent cities are due to leftist policies that led to the closure of mental
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health asylums and permissive drug use enablement policies that fed an opioid addiction epidemic
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if we took all those people from tent encampments and put them into housing without treatment
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those housing complexes would become drug dens and drug crime hubs
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kawartha lakes in ontario boy they keep coming up proved with a catastrophic experiment when they
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put a bunch of addicts into subsidized housing look that one up guys they tore it to shreds and
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it's not to say that people on the streets don't need housing but we can't pretend the lack of housing is
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what put them there most of them are addicts and have mental health issues which need treatment in
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secured facilities and there are folks who just fell through the cracks and missed a couple rent
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payments they're screwed up north american projects weren't much better they're crime ridden slums
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which can be seen today in most major cities the creeping communism is just as insidious and damaging
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as the communist that came quick communism that came quickly through revolutions and we let the
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government incrementally take control of housing as it has with health care we can look forward to
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the rationed substandard delivery of housing we already enjoy with hospitals we mustn't let the
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government get there we need smaller government lower taxes and fewer regulations if we want
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affordable housing we let the governments take over we're trying to cure the disease with what
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caused it in the first place if looking back on communism is it doesn't offer stark enough example
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of what happens when government takes control of housing check out an indian reserve they offer a
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contemporary example right in our own country look if you want good quality affordable housing in
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canada the housing must be kept as far from the government control as possible all right well
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it's got me pissing one day how's it going dave going well cory but the comedy's all upset at you
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i do boy have they ever flattened my uh timeline on x over that they don't like that you were telling
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me some incredible numbers you're getting on x yeah that's like four million impressions in the
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last couple days on that one post alone they're very upset am i exposing their ugly concrete jungle
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housing as a failure they're saying it's one of the beautiful things the soviet union did of course
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none of these guys i think actually lived in them no i don't think so hopefully the commies keep
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going to make some money on x for some of the irony i make money off of x yes so as these guys keep
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pumping it up and this wonderful capitalist system of x run by musk they're just sending me more money
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so keep it up guys hey i got you a present oh yes oh no i gotta i can only look at this cory look at
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this thing of beauty sea chickens thing of beauty yeah now just for those who may have missed it
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why don't you sort of remind everybody what happened on the weekend well my steelers played
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your your seahawks on the weekend at the steelers stadium and the steelers had their asses roundly
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handed to them um i won't make any excuses you know you try to say oh well at least uh there was this
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shining aspect of every no the steelers stunk on every level the defense stunk the offense stunk and
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the special teams did a real special stinker there so yes yes your your seahawks soundly defeated
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the steelers last weekend i will i will spare you the shame of forcing you to wear it during your show
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oh thank you i appreciate that i mean i got my hair's all actually my hair terrible oh whatever
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there you go so uh i knew i had to eat some go seahawks go or seahawk or something don't need a seahawk
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uh busy day in the news we got a uh bc teacher suspended he got involved uh with a female student
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ended up uh sending her over 1 000 i guess they had 1 000 phone calls in just a year uh so uh he's
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been suspended for 15 years uh good riddance uh to him uh city of calgary budget details uh released
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today cory it's not going to shock you to find out you're going to have to pay more
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pretty well not you don't have to pay at all do you you're imprentice but i'm going to feel for
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you guys yeah so i have to pay more 5.6 percent on the property taxes and you know all sorts of
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other charges going up and up and up and it's going to be an expensive place to live uh we've got a story
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on the uh the federal dental care plan uh it's already a boondoggle they spent uh 500 million dollars
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just setting it up 500 million just to set the thing up and the bureaucrats who are setting it
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all up you know they have full dental coverage and won't have to use that program to go get their
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teeth fixed no no kidding and i wonder what sort of it contracts they've uh they've been using
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it ties back to all into that same thing like i was talking with covered house you can't let them
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run this stuff it only makes bureaucrats rich you don't get anything in the end and speaking of it it's
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now being revealed there are nine count them nine rcmp probes into itv procure it procurement at uh
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uh the federal level all basically coming out of the arrive cam scandal and the gc tragedy so
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so there's probably going to be some criminal charges laid uh eventually how much uh do you spend a year
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on shoes yeah not much maybe uh oh this is me i'm pretty cheap 150 bucks 200 bucks maybe what about
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jane last kind of female perspective pretty modest when it comes to that you know maybe maybe a few
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hundred i guess well if you're the governor general you can spend 1100 on shoes uh i got a story out
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today about her her regal spending shall we say and it's uh it's quite outrageous uh and the bank of
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canada today uh cut interest rates by a quarter uh down to 2.5 so uh let's keep that downward
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trajectory going for when i have to renew my mortgage next year and then they can well yeah
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they can do whatever they want and uh there's going to be big news at one o'clock today out of
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calgary police headquarters our david winnick will be there uh they're touting perhaps the largest drug
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bust in alberta history and it's all sort of seems like all across north america and the united
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states we've got uh uh people here from the dea toronto police so it's uh should be a big press
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conference and then we'll have all the details oh yeah i heard you sending dave out to check that out
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in there i didn't know what that was about so uh yeah it should be good and who do your steelers
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lose to this weekend they will be playing the patriots this week oh and the paler the patriots stink
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these days too so i'm hoping that tomlin is whipping a beating at least into and again i'm
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ticked i'm not going to try and sugarcoat things for this year they've got the most highly paid
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defense in the entire league and they look like high school football players last weekend i think
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i picked them in the pub pool for this week uh so yeah i think you know maybe tomlin's good for that
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he'll lay a beating into them and maybe they'll perform if it cheers you up i was one yard away from
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winning the pub pool and four hundred dollars but houston could not score from the one yard line
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so it took a bit of sting out of these celebrations uh well i'll just see i'd rather you'd still had
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your year funds uh so uh you know i wouldn't feel as bad when i mock you when the team turns around
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well when you're sitting in your laser boy watching the game feel free to wear the seahawks out
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yeah i'll keep that right on thanks dame you bet all right that is our news editor dave naylor bad
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taste in football but an excellent nose for news guys and the reason we've got dave and dave the
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other dave down there at the police conference and those reporters you see scurrying around behind me
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in the newsroom back there is due to subscribers because we are an independent news outlet so guys
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if you haven't subscribed yet 10 bucks a month hundred dollars for a year westernstandard.news
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slash subscription again you used to pay for a newspaper subscription without thinking twice
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this is how we keep these things rolling you know it's not like the old days where classified ads
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can keep everything going for you anymore if you subscribed you know i really appreciate it thank
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you very much and if you haven't yet get on there take one out uh let's see just check some of the
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comments here i see debbie from taber and uh you know jacqueline saying why would anybody believe
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carney would cut anything i know but it's eastern canada seemed to believe what carney was going to do
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uh the state of alberta person saying what you know wooden houses if given be given to whoever are
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sober people who didn't commit crimes well i doubt it they tend to make these uh you know programs
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and they're broad and they're not focused and they're not targeted and that's the discussion people
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are looking for simplex simplistic solutions for complicated problems i've talked about that on
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here a lot we have a huge addiction epidemic we have a huge problem of people with serious
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untreated mental health issues who are on the streets but if people think that just building
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houses is what's going to take care of that i mean houses are needed but the issue is treatment
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these guys need to be taken off the streets they need to be brought into a secure treatment center
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and hopefully successfully become ready to move into housing because they aren't right now people
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are being naive go to a tent city because i know you listen to some apologists they say oh they're
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people are just gonna make the rent or high costs of housing or couldn't find a job no guys they're
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junkies let's just not beat around the bush and if you just took them and stick them into a house
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all they're gonna do is turn it into a drug den strip the copper wire out sell that probably burn
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the place to the ground and end up back in their tent city within a month if they survive
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i'm not saying like they're animals and awful people they need help but we're being stupid if we
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think the reason they're on the street is for lack of government building housing we do want to make
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housing more affordable and i tell you the last way to make it affordable is to get the government
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building it it's like dave brought up we've got a dental program that's supposed to give everybody
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free dental guess what who can afford that because no dentists are offering it with that
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program and they've already spent 500 million dollars though in the administration paperwork
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paperwork won't fill your tooth guys you need a dentist to do that but you're not going to get
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one if the government has it's just like the government has the monopoly on health care how's
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that all working out for you great long as you can survive long enough to get through the waiting
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lines look we got to learn and uh these these issues they take a little more in-depth looking
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than rather than just saying let's just get the government to fix it that's usually the last
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solution uh well problem is it's not a solution all right well let's talk about solving other things
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this is our chance to impact the government we got a municipal election coming up in alberta and that
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means we're voting for our county reeves in my case and counselors and uh mayors and uh
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counselors in other towns and the other one that's always forgotten or shouldn't be is our school board
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trustees and god guys the school boards are going nuts in some places some of the stuff going on
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terrio is hair raising and i think it's because we haven't paid attention so i'm happy that we've
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got a jennifer stewart is running for uh ward six and seven in calgary for the calgary school
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school board to put your your hat for it actually i'm gonna get this thing off the counter jesus
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dude thanks so much for having me i appreciate you coming in and uh i i i know unfortunately with a
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lot of people this school board comes up it's a school board but then everybody gets outraged when
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the school boards do something poorly or don't do something at all and uh well whose fault is that but
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our own so i appreciate you stepping up i mean this is not some high profile uh high paying political
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sort of role or job or something the only reason a person would run for a school board is they have
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goals in mind that they want for the schools so thank you for for doing it yeah thank you thank you
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so much for for having me on and talking about it because you're definitely right um it's definitely not
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given enough attention and also people really aren't sure what a school board trustee does no and
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that's what i wanted to ask you first so maybe if you could kind of break that down what is the
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responsibility of a trustee and the role yes absolutely so um in alberta a public school board
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trustee is an elected official um that is is really there to govern the school division um they don't
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run the day-to-day operations of schools that's up to the superintendent and the people that work under
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the superintendent um but they govern the the school system to make sure that it's serving students
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efficiently and effectively yeah and it's kind of the conduit i guess between the you know parents and
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citizens and the administration who really run the nuts and bolts right yes absolutely so um the the
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school board it does it does quite a few things and then there's also things that i i've that it can't
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do um publicly that's part of the you know what the province sets or also up to the individual schools
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and teachers and the superintendent um so they set policy for the school division um they made sure that
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it aligns with provincial legislation um they also establish the mission the vision uh and also the
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priorities for the education of students um probably the biggest thing that they do is they oversee the
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budget uh so for example this year for the 25 20 or 2025 2026 school uh season is a 1.67 billion dollar
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budget um for 146 000 students in over 250 schools so that's a really big part of their job is making
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sure that they approve the divisions budget and make sure that the funding is allocated responsibly
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for students and schools great and then the other part is i mean as an advocate and the local
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representative the needs in school divisions are different from division to division i mean uh you
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know you get into a higher new canadian part of the city they're going to be different challenges with
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esl and things such as that or inner city of schools that are underpopulated that new suburbs you got
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schools that are uh don't have enough space so i think it's important to have representatives from
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those different areas rather than a central person to speak up it is for sure um and it's actually in
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in the education act the the school elected school board trustees do have to think um they're an advocate
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for all of the students and the community members parents um and and community stakeholders but they
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do advocate for all the students across the board in the division as well yes you have to look at the
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broad thing but at the same time it's uh you know an advocate for your local area that might be
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represented or different needs or views yeah and school board should really be engaging with the
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community especially especially with their constituents um community engagement is really important so part
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of the trustee's job is to go into schools when they're invited um and go uh you know meet with
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parents and and stakeholders and engage the community great before i get more specific into your
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platform which i want to get into uh but i mean we see issues with the the system the trustee
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system altogether and it seems to be coming to a peak in ontario where they're actually talking
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about eliminating the role of school board trustees which i think would be a bad approach it'd be a loss
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of a means of accountability but when you look at some of the i mean ontario listen it's crazy things
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that come out of some of their school boards out there which you can understand why the provincial
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government maybe is saying you know we've had enough with it what can and should we be doing
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provincially to make sure our school boards as a whole are effective and at a worthwhile endeavor
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for people yeah and that's a great question i think i mean i i there is a lot of value in having
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a local school board level i mean they're they're closest to the students they're closest to the
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community and they should be advocating for for what the community needs because the community needs
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in calgary may not be the same as edmonton's it's not going to be the same as rural communities so you
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do need people at the local level who who know what's going on in the community engaging with the
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community and you know knowing what the community needs in order to advocate for them effectively
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and i'm not sure um that somebody at the provincial level most definitely not at the federal level is
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going to know what's best for you know students in in southwest calgary no absolutely not uh so getting
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on to your campaign so what's what's driven you i mean a person usually a lot of reason what is it that
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you want to bring to the table then to change or or adjust or impact within the school board yeah
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absolutely so i um my student my my kids aren't in the school system yet but they will be soon and
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they're they're my primary motivation for running um i i i'm not happy with what's happening in public
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schools right now and the status quo is not working um the other thing that kind of pushed me towards
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running was i uh when i had my my first kids i had twins first um i joined a mom group and uh i'm
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very lucky to still be close with this mom group today but there's they're all cbe teachers i'm not
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i'm a small business owner um but i've spent the last last few years listening to them on the teacher
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side uh i've always been interested in the policy side but you know i now that i've been hearing the
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teacher side um there's a lot more going on in schools that really needs to be addressed uh in
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particular by the board and it's it's just not happening teachers are not happy i mean everyone
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can see that already with the strike happening but there's a lot more to it i think um and i think
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the school boards haven't been supporting teachers the way that they should be and that needs to change
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so um again in supporting the students then in which way do you feel that the board needs to be doing
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such well there's there's quite a few different things that the board the board can do so the
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board can't um the board can't uh implement curriculum that's that's set by the province but
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the board can help implement uh different ways about how the curriculum is is taught for example um
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the number one issue that i hear from teachers is about classroom complexity uh and and that's
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something that the board can address based literally just by funding right the the the current
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funding model where the students with complex needs have to be assessed uh in the classroom
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and uh have their their needs assessed and what what kind of stuff they're going to need for the year
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by september 30th and then the province provides the funding um but if anything happens after september
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30th those students are not supported because the funding has already been allocated and to me that's
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an immediate failure to this any student that's moving around after september 30th they're not going to
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have the supports and stuff that they need and besides that there's not enough supports going
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into the classroom right now the money really needs to follow the students um and i think right now
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it's it's not doing that yeah i mean union negotiations and such are outside of the preview of a
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of a school board that you're speaking of things as a whole i mean there's been some of the battle
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people say okay we need more resources in the class but if you give a certain amount to the teachers
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there's not going to be much resources left any longer we can only spend so much uh well and
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exactly and also it doesn't i mean of course of of course you know there's many things that need more
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money but it doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem if that money is mismanaged
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there's no point yeah so what about some of the diversity of school provision that's been a kind
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of a battle going on different students respond better in different environments sometimes
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sometimes you not just uh special needs within the same school but maybe a different school that
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can offer different programs can be effective oh without a doubt and the school board sets those
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programs um there's also the whole the whole point of yeah the school board is in charge of the
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programs and adding more and making more choices available for parents and that's that's obviously
00:23:18.960
something that works we need to make sure parents are aware of those programs and that there's also not
00:23:23.520
huge lineups waiting to get into those those programs for parents um the other thing that school
00:23:28.640
boards could be doing that they're not doing right now is you know there's a lot of charter schools
00:23:34.000
um that are doing really well and are doing things really well and that's the whole point of having a
00:23:38.960
charter school is you know to to pick something niche and do it really well and then that model can
00:23:44.480
be brought back to the cbe and the cbe can implement it and that's not happening we need to we don't have
00:23:49.280
to re reinvent the wheel or rewrite the whole thing we can look at what's happening in other jurisdictions
00:23:54.320
what's working and what what they're doing super well and apply it to the cbe yes does the cbe have
00:23:59.840
any kind of authority over charter schools or are they totally separate totally separate yeah charter
00:24:04.000
schools are their own which again as you said that doesn't mean you can't learn from them or look at
00:24:07.440
them and stuff they compliment absolutely almost an adversarial as the attitude i'm held by some that
00:24:13.360
charter schools are undercutting public education and and uh i i i find that problematic i mean there's
00:24:19.440
some people feel we should just box it all into one centralized type of system yeah i i personally
00:24:24.800
would disagree with that i think i'm all for for for choice for parents to choose where their kids go
00:24:29.920
to school and the different types of programs um and and different different things that their kids can
00:24:35.200
be a part of which will will help shape their education better so you're in words six and seven
00:24:42.640
yeah that's where i'm running in words six and seven which part of the city is that people should
00:24:46.480
know their ward but as i said there's a lot of people don't pay enough attention yeah definitely
00:24:50.400
and it's hard with with school boards too because it's two wards right councillors just have the one
00:24:54.320
wards so it's actually quite a lot of ground to cover and a lot of neighborhoods and communities so
00:24:58.400
ward six in particular is uh in the southwest basically from like morgan uh discovery signal
00:25:04.000
hill all the way across over to cougar ridge right by cop um and all the kind of communities in
00:25:09.200
between ward seven is kind of a funny ward i always joke with people um about ward seven because i i think
00:25:15.360
uh it's like they drew all the other wards and everything that was left over in the middle is
00:25:19.360
ward seven because it's a little bit of uh of a little bit of the southwest a little bit of the
00:25:24.160
northwest and then also the northeast as well kind of from yeah so it's a it's a lot kind of in the
00:25:30.560
middle demographic changes i mean there's not many kids i think in kensington it's not really a young
00:25:35.520
family type area there isn't yeah there's the the amount of households in in that particular part
00:25:40.880
of ward seven is very low uh they not a lot of kids in the household there as opposed to
00:25:45.840
you know ward six where the they have a lot of kids in the household but to vote on the trustee
00:25:50.320
thing you don't have to have kids in the system absolutely not yeah and i always people that's the
00:25:55.280
number one thing i get door knocking is people say oh you know my kids are grown they're not in the
00:25:59.120
system i don't have kids um i have grandkids but you know everyone your taxes still go there
00:26:05.120
you're still a community stakeholder and you know these children are the next workforce it does it does
00:26:10.640
matter um and everyone should be a part of everyone should have a voice in shaping public
00:26:15.440
education yeah i mean those are the kids that are going to be filling government and filling
00:26:18.560
the places that are taking care of you when you're in your role as a senior and so on if you haven't
00:26:22.480
taken care of them now you might be in for a rough retirement later it's an interest to be engaged
00:26:27.280
even if your kids aren't there i just wanted to clarify that because some people feel well again
00:26:31.120
as you said or my kids aren't in it it doesn't matter well it does yeah and actually another thing
00:26:35.600
at the doors too is people are asking like is it is it on the ballot is it separate so when you get
00:26:39.760
your ballot uh when you go to vote in the election um you get your your mayor candidates your counselors
00:26:45.760
and then they ask you uh public or or separate or catholic right and then so when when you let's
00:26:52.640
say presumably you you win uh your your seat on the the board uh i guess what sort of approach you can
00:26:58.640
be bringing to it one of the problems we've seen before of all you know people might not know Alberta
00:27:02.080
history Daniel Smith got her first electoral start as a school board member at Cagri yes i didn't know that
00:27:06.800
it was such a disaster that the province ended up stepping in and dissolving that particular
00:27:12.080
school board because they were all at each other's throats and fighting the whole time and to this
00:27:15.760
day i think they're still all putting fingers at each other but whose fault that was sure uh but it
00:27:20.960
really takes a different kind of patience and and working as a as a group if you want to get anything
00:27:25.600
done absolutely and that's the whole point of a governing board is um you're all there to represent
00:27:30.560
all the different students and yeah the board would need to work together to to bring about actual change
00:27:35.040
so uh when you're campaigning what's the thing you're hearing the most of the doors and with
00:27:40.880
people with concerns for the system right now people are really people are really worried about
00:27:45.520
teachers i've also met a lot of teachers at the door and when every single time that i talk to a
00:27:50.880
teacher they don't they don't say pay is their number one um what their number one thing that the
00:27:57.360
teachers are telling me in particular is classroom complexity needs to be dealt with they're not being
00:28:01.920
supported um in the classroom for all of the different complex needs that come up right they
00:28:06.720
don't have enough eas there's there's not enough of them to go around classroom sizes is obviously
00:28:11.840
um at the top of everyone's list um and now most recently lots of parents are obviously worried about
00:28:17.840
the strike yeah well it's it's an inconvenience to say the least i mean i know people say well school
00:28:23.760
isn't supposed to be your babysitters well yes and no we pay a lot of money and they're supposed to be
00:28:27.520
entrusted to her we could count on them managing our children for a certain amount of hours every
00:28:32.400
week and it can be very disruptive for people on a fixed income to suddenly have of course and there
00:28:38.880
have you know there hasn't been a strike since 2001 so no one's actually dealt with it um at this
00:28:43.120
level right the closest thing to that would be covet when students are at home but yeah no a strike
00:28:47.760
it is a big deal and i think for the teachers to have got to this point that they're that they're ready
00:28:51.840
to strike like i said before there's a lot of failures on different levels and teachers aren't feeling
00:28:56.320
heard um and yeah they they need to be heard they need to be supported in the classroom well let's
00:29:01.120
hope it's averted i mean again if you know a break in as we saw with covet a break in the schooling for
00:29:05.040
the kids just doesn't do them any good at all no it doesn't and i i really do hope they come to
00:29:09.520
agreement but yeah october 6 is coming up pretty quickly it is and then uh october 6 i mean that might
00:29:15.360
lead it to just remind everybody the voting days october 20th advanced polling starts october 6 as well
00:29:21.040
yeah so uh this election is coming up fast and that might be a prime issue in this election is is
00:29:26.880
a strike going on at that time uh but i mean we have to do our part for it so before i let you go
00:29:34.000
how do people find your campaign to help out or ask more questions yeah absolutely um so they can visit
00:29:40.160
my website it's jennifer stewart for trustee.com um i have a number of different engagements i'm out in the
00:29:45.360
community i'm out every weekend i'm out multiple times a week different areas around ward six and seven if you see
00:29:50.640
me come say hi um but yeah uh jennifer stewart for trustee.com i'd love to hear from you uh i i
00:29:56.720
love hearing different ideas and and hearing what issues and concerns are facing constituents in
00:30:01.600
schools at the local level excellent well this is your your opportunity to get out and hear people on
00:30:06.480
the ground that's what uh you gotta just politicians have to remember for that other four years once they
00:30:11.360
get in what they heard uh during us and that's the critical period yeah that and i think the most
00:30:15.840
important thing once you once you get in is to stay uh engaged and and stay engaged and in contact with
00:30:22.400
the community because they are the people that you represent and one of the things that i really don't
00:30:26.480
like about um right now with the school board with the school board in general is trustees actually
00:30:31.360
aren't allowed to go into schools without being invited so they can't just go into a school and talk
00:30:36.400
to parents and teachers and community members they have to be invited to school council meetings
00:30:40.480
um and that to me just seems a little bit backwards um you know especially when trustees are supposed to be
00:30:45.840
representing representing the community at large yeah getting a filtered version perhaps and uh
00:30:51.280
missing some of this stuff that's interesting to hear i didn't know that actually yeah all right
00:30:55.040
well thank you very much for coming in to explain and thank you very much for having me i wish you
00:30:59.920
the best on the campaign well time's quick and fast on it yeah it's going to come up really soon
00:31:04.480
thanks again thank you all right guys so yes jennifer stewart ward six and seven if you look it up you
00:31:11.040
know google that name and uh you will find her campaign site and you can reach out to her
00:31:16.160
there's somebody saying vote jen in the comments already there you've gained one at least already
00:31:19.760
so it's a good start uh but it's every level of our democracy is underrated we don't take part in it
00:31:26.800
enough it's one thing i i admire though i understand the headaches of it in in the u.s you know whenever
00:31:32.000
i travel down my mother's american i go to the states a lot and it seems there's always an election
00:31:36.960
going on you know there's some corners in some towns that's just always decorated with signs because
00:31:41.760
they're electing everything from their county coroner to the county clerk to the sheriff to
00:31:47.440
we don't elect nearly as many positions up here in canada and if we want to elect more of those maybe
00:31:53.360
people don't i don't know but if we do we got to be taking advantage of the ones we're allowed to vote
00:31:58.160
for now and uh trustees it's just one and i gotta admit i'm guilty of it too i have no idea who the
00:32:04.720
trustee is down in my area i'm gonna have to look into it before voting time comes and try and make
00:32:09.040
a decision but as we discussed as well it does impact you guys because yeah those kids coming up
00:32:15.840
and through there they're the ones we're going to be relying on later it's pretty important and that
00:32:20.560
teacher strength coming in alberta it's looming fast and boy it's getting pretty um heated between
00:32:26.080
the smith government and the union which is not unusual uh listening to to uh jennifer she's saying
00:32:33.760
the the bigger issue with teachers is you know class sizes and uh you know the the ability to deal
00:32:40.000
with different needs of kids but it often these union the teachers might say that one-on-one but
00:32:45.520
the union always just says we want more salary we want more pension we want more money for the teachers
00:32:49.680
i i some of the the impasse coming is is the smith government said look we offered you guys 12
00:32:54.720
and a commitment to hire 3 000 more teachers and you told us to get stuffed how much more do you want
00:33:01.520
and uh the union won't give the answer so uh it's it's it seems to be an impasse we're going to see
00:33:09.120
what happens but keep an eye on it as well you know the rest of the municipal election watch it
00:33:14.080
guys look at the lunatics we got right these city councils this stuff i mean don deck dave mentioned
00:33:18.720
the budget and the tax increases that are hitting in the city of calgary uh these things are important
00:33:24.320
everywhere i'm down in the md of foothills it's also a a couple of the council uh seats actually are
00:33:29.360
getting some strong contention going on down there pay attention it can only do you good and if they
00:33:34.560
don't these elected representatives don't represent you later fire them because they get away with
00:33:38.800
murder if we don't know who they are and unfortunately i gotta take a shot at how
00:33:43.200
horrible our media is our legacy media is to show on how you can't trust them how bad it's gotten uh
00:33:50.480
not just the self-serving part because we're independent we we don't do this sort of thing
00:33:53.840
but just it makes it difficult for elections things like that to figure out what's what's right and
00:33:58.160
what's wrong here's a beautiful example from ctv on a headline this came up on x last night and i was just
00:34:05.280
in shock when i read it this was the headline black student found hanging from a tree in mississippi
00:34:13.680
whoa no whoa okay so we've gone out of our way to determine the race of this person and that it's
00:34:20.960
a student and he was hanging from a tree and in mississippi of all states reeks of a lynching doesn't
00:34:26.800
it memories of mississippi burning in the movie and then the whole works holy cow what's going on here
00:34:32.080
well i read the story and it still didn't say a heck of a lot except that the black guy was found
00:34:37.600
hanging in a tree in a college campus down in mississippi i searched further and i get to of
00:34:42.080
all things people magazine which had a larger version of this entire story in it and the black student
00:34:48.640
was the coroner has determined that it was suicide and that there's the police have said there's no foul
00:34:54.800
play and nobody is at risk you know typically media doesn't report on suicides i don't know if people
00:35:01.040
know that in general there's kind of an unwritten rule you just don't report on suicides at all
00:35:05.760
unless it's something outstanding a celebrity or an unusual circumstance of it otherwise they don't
00:35:11.520
want to publicize suicides and they don't but cb ctv felt compelled now i to be fair cnn put the
00:35:19.600
same crappy headline out so they use the same newswire but i mean every outlet can change the headlines when
00:35:23.840
you're taking stuff off the wire and stuff like that guys what a torqued divisive rotten headline
00:35:31.040
to put out there they didn't and i had an idiot on x there's no shortage of those uh debating me on
00:35:37.440
that well what did you want them to write on it nothing nothing this this was not reportable
00:35:43.360
particularly with a canadian outlet this was a tragedy this was a student that got into a terribly
00:35:49.680
bad place and committed suicide by hanging himself on a tree branch but ctv wants to go out and make
00:35:56.800
it look like the southern states are lynching young black men that's exactly what their headline is
00:36:01.920
talking about i mean why else let's just say they felt it was worth reporting on in general why did they
00:36:09.920
even have to say black why did the race matter it's just a student found hanging from a tree but no they
00:36:15.120
had to go out of their way black student found hanging from a tree in mississippi now how many
00:36:20.000
people didn't read further how many people didn't look a little farther to see the context and what
00:36:25.600
was happening behind that story instead they were just mortified thinking again we've we've got that
00:36:31.280
racial hornet's nest going on in the southern states and they're lynching black people again
00:36:35.360
look i spent a lot of time working south of the border all over the place i spent a lot some of the
00:36:42.320
yeah there's racial issues going on down there that we don't see in canada and there's some divisions
00:36:47.520
and there's a lot of big problems and uh you see that when it explodes and things like some of the
00:36:52.480
riots that look you know when when things come to a head and pop when i worked upstate new york some of
00:36:57.840
the crackers up there and the guys i had to deal with and i understand why some black people are pretty
00:37:02.240
bloody frustrated with uh trying to integrate into society with a lot of the folks up there hey some
00:37:07.920
great people up there too it's not just the south is part of what i'm saying uh but the south has its
00:37:13.680
issues as well but it doesn't help when legacy media torques headlines like this think of how that must
00:37:20.720
feel then again if you were a young black person who read that and didn't look further thought oh my
00:37:26.080
they are lynching people like me because of my color in mississippi because you didn't get to see the
00:37:33.200
rest of it why because ctv wanted to get clicks and maybe just ctv has gotten so bad they've been
00:37:38.800
worse than than cbc lately an ideological agenda an anti-american agenda that's been big with them
00:37:46.880
and a kissing of the liberal butts who really want to keep the division alive it was the division between
00:37:51.680
canada the united states that got carney elected i know some of my uh you know viewers and followers
00:37:57.200
disagree i know i i believe it was trump's fault for his his bloody uh approach to trade and and the
00:38:03.840
the turd he threw into our electoral punch bowl up here with his ridiculous tariffs and all that that
00:38:08.880
led to that but carney took full advantage of that and won an election based on it that he went into
00:38:14.640
with a minuscule amount of support and now he subsidizes the major legacy media outlets and those
00:38:20.800
legacy media outlets want to keep him happy well how do they keep him happy well let's keep the
00:38:24.640
division up between the united states and canada and let's just keep making the us look like some
00:38:29.200
crazed hellhole where they're lynching black people so some clown at ctv and went through probably a few
00:38:34.160
layers before that went out to the full headline said yeah this sounds like a good idea we'll put
00:38:38.000
that out there uh cyril arnold one of the commenters saying the headline is enough to trigger outrage so
00:38:43.360
the facts of the incident are lost that's it you know you're you're your uh vein pops and you see that
00:38:49.600
and uh you uh you don't necessarily look farther into it but this is this is bad this isn't some
00:38:57.440
backwater website or some individual's tweet or anything this is ctv one of the biggest media
00:39:03.200
outlets in canada and that's the trash they're putting out and they didn't even bury the lead they
00:39:09.120
didn't have that somewhere farther in the story that was suicide they didn't even put that part in
00:39:12.800
their story it's it's it's a organization i think is unfit to be in business any longer if they're
00:39:17.840
going to pull crap like that i mean hey we're encouraged in media to grab hold of people's
00:39:24.560
eyeballs with the headlines the standard does it we don't do anything like that but sure we'll put
00:39:29.440
headlines to be catchy and try to pull people in hoping they'll click through and read this story
00:39:33.760
but this is grossly divisive and irresponsible and misrepresenting it is just an affront
00:39:40.480
to responsible journalism and and and just i would have expected better i would have thought
00:39:46.720
maybe i don't anymore i don't know uh let's see here's a big one that came up in the globe and
00:39:54.160
mail and it's been kind of through ctv palestinian visa applications for canadian asylum blocked without
00:39:59.280
explanation lawyer says i thought how am i going to respond to that good we don't need them you know
00:40:06.800
there's a whole middle east that loves their values let them take them in we've got enough we
00:40:13.440
do not need to dip into that terrorist hornet's nest and bring them here canada has mass immigration
00:40:18.960
problems already we need to be carrying on with immigration being a heck of a lot more selective
00:40:24.960
with who and what trades and things like that and once the people come here and fit in and do well
00:40:31.440
and i tell you what palestinians don't fit in well anywhere we don't need them there's issues going on
00:40:35.920
over there we don't need to take it in here's something on the good news front kind of in a
00:40:40.000
funny way uh thomas lukasic he's been doing his little uh petition in alberta he's the he's the
00:40:45.520
disgraced uh uh former alberta mla for people don't remember he was deputy premier for allison redford
00:40:51.600
you know kind of a token position he's the one who billed albertans for what twenty thousand dollars
00:40:55.680
for his personal phone bill when he was uh over overseas at a trip to poland but he's been doing that
00:41:02.240
canada forever petition for a while now and uh i don't know it's not looking very good he keeps
00:41:07.360
dodging and deking and hiding and squirming whenever somebody asks me how many asks him how
00:41:11.520
many signatures he's got but now he's coming up even saying well you know what people are afraid
00:41:18.320
to sign some people are afraid to sign they're afraid to be seen signing this thing oh what a load
00:41:22.960
of crap for one fabio you are the guardian of those signatures are you not these are just only
00:41:29.840
supposed to be going to elections alberta it's not the government they don't trust then
00:41:34.160
fabio it's you they aren't afraid what for repercussions they think they're going to get
00:41:38.880
for signing a petition spare me no he's making his excuses because the petition is going to fail
00:41:44.800
he's not going to get his 300 000 signatures he's got uh less than a month and a half to get it done now
00:41:50.320
and obviously the numbers aren't coming in if the numbers were coming in he'd be
00:41:53.440
whooping and flagging and standing on rooftops and yelling about how brilliant he is and how great
00:41:57.840
raise petitions doing one thing i wouldn't trust in giving some of the information to some of that
00:42:01.520
i hope they don't do such but you got to remember he's obviously still has a political future in mind
00:42:06.400
going on and boy what a database he's sure building for his own little political future isn't he
00:42:11.200
i expect a lot of the people who uh took part and supported that group and signed petitions and such
00:42:16.240
are gonna suddenly find themselves contacted for fundraising and voting and all sorts of other
00:42:21.440
things that they didn't realize that were going to come with that either way it'll be interesting to see
00:42:25.920
whenever the the you know in november probably when the courts are done the petitioning begins on
00:42:30.480
the real independence uh question coming for a referendum in alberta and uh uh seeing how
00:42:40.800
well the app or or or how poorly they do in petitioning this should be a warning to some of
00:42:46.400
them guys it's not going to be easy you're not you're you're better organized than than thomas
00:42:50.640
lokasik's little group is but and you have a longer timeline you have less fewer signatures
00:42:55.440
but i tell you what a couple hundred thousand signatures in four months is a huge task it's a
00:42:59.440
big one so you guys have better be remaining prepared and ready for it uh tyler volstadt saying
00:43:04.320
the forever canada people were hounding me the other day to try to get me to sign i'd heard from uh
00:43:08.560
clayton uh a friend of mine down uh in our area and i guess he checked checked out one of the forever
00:43:16.000
canada ones down i think it was black diamond he said they parked with his wife and they just kind of
00:43:19.360
watched for a bit and what they did was held everybody up before they allowed them to sign
00:43:24.080
because they put the word out to everybody come on out come out to sign so they had about 30 40
00:43:27.520
people in line held them all up one limb sign so that they could take a picture showing a big lineup
00:43:31.920
and then other than that there really wasn't anything there again welcome to media and how you
00:43:36.480
don't get the whole picture uh wildrow saying how uh cory how soon do you think we'll get a referendum
00:43:41.360
i still think it's going to happen in 2026 maybe by june it's just a matter how we're going to get to
00:43:45.760
it i think if the court shuts it down i got a feeling that the smith government's still going
00:43:49.680
to allow it to happen one way or another because she's kind of painted into a corner on it uh
00:43:55.760
here's a cbc story let's get a you know close things off again with our state broadcaster
00:44:01.120
which uh we expect very little of so they're worse than than cbc ctv of course and we get to
00:44:06.960
pay one and a half billion for these guys here's the headline i study climate change this summer it
00:44:12.720
got too hot for me to do my field work yeah this is uh the whole story about this poor young lady
00:44:19.920
studying climate change and it got hot out so i got over 30 degrees she couldn't do it she couldn't
00:44:24.080
make it she was gonna bake like a potato what a wimp what a bunch of crap look i'm not saying
00:44:29.920
that climate change isn't necessarily happening and things are not necessarily getting warmer but
00:44:32.880
spare me hot weather is nothing new you can work in it you overpaid government simp
00:44:39.360
i worked on the texas mexico border in july and august when i was a surveyor in the past man
00:44:44.480
i got a hell of a tan while i was down there it's hot your average every day is over 40 and it's humid
00:44:50.800
down there you drink a load of water you take a lot of breaks and you get through it most of the world
00:44:56.400
deals with that kind of heat on a regular basis they don't shut down what i see is another lazy
00:45:01.520
entitled student with their degree that came out taught that climate change is gonna fry us all
00:45:09.440
and is just making excuses not to get to work i don't doubt she invoiced and got paid for it all
00:45:14.080
all right well that's enough out of me for today guys thank you very much for tuning in the pipeline's
00:45:18.720
gonna be on tonight be sure to tune into that we'll have a panel breaking down a bunch more of the issues
00:45:23.600
going on out there keep an eye on all these channels like them share them john's been working
00:45:28.240
great in production we got all sorts of new stuff leo's been putting interviews out watch
00:45:32.640
the western standard we're breaking the news out here we've got a newsroom covering these things
00:45:37.040
and keep tuning in i'll see you next week at this time