CORY MORGAN SHOW： Pipelines must be an election plank
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode of The Corey Morgan Show, host, Corey Morgan is joined by Emmanuel Foubert of the Montreal Economic Institute to discuss Canada's economic and political problems. Topics covered include: - Canada's energy infrastructure woes - The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project - How to pay our bills - Trump's trade tariffs - The future of the Canadian oil and gas sector - The upcoming federal election - How can we get our economy back on track?
Transcript
00:00:29.980
So, 45 minutes to try and make sense of the insanity of whatever's going on in North America, around the world, all over.
00:00:37.580
Just an abundance of issues to try and cover and talk about.
00:00:40.700
I've picked out a few, and we will dissect them and sort them out.
00:00:45.580
This is a live show, so guys, use that comment scroll, send it out there.
00:00:53.100
I don't necessarily respond to every one of them, but I do see them, and it helps keep the discussion going.
00:01:02.180
So, in a little bit, I'm going to have Emmanuel Foubert of the Montreal Economic Institute on.
00:01:06.640
We're going to talk about health care in Alberta, and pretty much in every province, it's the same sort of issues going on.
00:01:11.820
I mean, I know everything else is dominated with the federal issues, and we're going to talk about a lot of that.
00:01:15.260
But we can't forget that all the other stuff is still happening while all of our federal nightmare is going on, and we still have to address those issues.
00:01:25.860
So, let's start things out to get things rolling on how we pay our bills.
00:01:30.900
This episode has been sponsored by New World Precious Metals, and they're based right here in Alberta.
00:01:35.520
Years of inflationary money printing and rising debt have decimated the average Canadian's savings.
00:01:44.580
Gold and silver are the only currencies that have held their value for thousands of years, and they've saw 30% gains.
00:01:50.100
Gold's really gone up, actually, this last few years.
00:01:58.080
These are the ones who are going to help you with it.
00:02:05.240
All right, an E-sharp checking in there saying 51st state.
00:02:13.640
I mean, we're in a crisis right now, federally.
00:02:15.920
There's no getting around it, at least in the immediate term, with Trump's ridiculous tariffs.
00:02:20.880
But how that mess is going to be resolved remains to be seen.
00:02:24.300
And it certainly doesn't help that Canada's parliament is prorogued, and the prime minister is a complete lame duck.
00:02:29.580
If nothing else, Canadians have suddenly discovered, though, how vulnerable they've let themselves become due to strangling the ability to export oil and gas products for decades.
00:02:38.420
Canada has an abundance of resources, but the one that the USA values the most out of us are our petroleum products.
00:02:44.200
And if the nation were ever to dream of putting serious pressure on the United States in a trade war, it would have to be through reducing exports.
00:02:50.880
As it stands, though, the USA for our exports purchases over 90% of our oil and gas.
00:02:58.560
They have a buyer's monopoly and allows Trump to shake Canada like a dog with a ragdoll.
00:03:03.560
Pipelines and export infrastructure take time to construct.
00:03:07.020
In fact, in Canada, they take an impossibly long time.
00:03:12.820
And the federal government found itself purchasing the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
00:03:16.280
Now, the entire nation is paying a terrible price for the short-sighted policies of an anti-energy government.
00:03:25.780
We can fast-track pipeline and export terminal construction in a way like we've never seen before.
00:03:30.820
And that opportunity is the upcoming federal election.
00:03:35.340
And in a democratic nation, nothing provides a more solid mandate than receiving the stamp of approval from voters in a general election.
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It's the one time when every Canadian has the opportunity to express themselves on issues and who they want to be governed by.
00:03:47.540
I know it doesn't work in the long run necessarily, but that's our best chance.
00:03:51.280
Now, Quebec's been the main hindrance in getting energy infrastructure constructed to the East Coast.
00:03:55.500
They use the nonsense term of social license and claim Canada doesn't have this imaginary license to build a pipeline.
00:04:01.880
Well, what better way, then, let's play the game, is there to garner this supposed license than to have it on the ballot, essentially, in a general election?
00:04:08.760
Pipeline capacity expansion has the highest public support levels right now than it's probably ever had in Canada.
00:04:14.100
No major party is going to lose a significant degree of support by campaigning on getting pipelines built across the nation right now.
00:04:21.380
I mean, leftists, they despise Trump and Putin even more than they dislike pipelines.
00:04:26.360
If Canada gets pipeline access to the East Coast, Canada will no longer need to purchase $200 million a year in Russian oil.
00:04:32.900
And they could snipe some European oil and gas customers from Putin as well.
00:04:36.240
With increased access to the West Coast, Canada can send its oil and gas products to the energy-hungry South Asian markets
00:04:41.780
and reduce the discount we get on selling to the American buyers on the other side of the border.
00:04:47.200
What leftists could resist the temptation to offer an economic middle finger to both Trump and Putin at the same time?
00:04:53.160
Now, aside from the spite aspect, increasing Canada's ability to export energy products just makes good economic sense.
00:04:58.740
Every business does better when it has a broader customer market.
00:05:01.320
The only factor making pipeline construction economically unviable to both coasts is the government.
00:05:07.200
Regulations and delays kill investment in its tracks and it costs a fortune.
00:05:17.920
It's all been done for both the Northern Gateway and the Energy Ease proposal.
00:05:24.880
And the same chronic opponents are going to piss and moan about it.
00:05:28.400
No further studies, no licenses, no consultations are going to change that.
00:05:31.480
The government must declare these lines of the national interest, approve them, clear the way, and get them done.
00:05:38.360
We've seen how well that works in the Trans Mountain expansion.
00:05:40.360
Private industry, though, they would be willing, but they need rock-solid guarantees.
00:05:43.500
A right-of-way must be charted across the country, and the naysayers need to be basically told to get stuffed.
00:05:47.960
The first Trans Mountain pipeline went across some of the roughest terrain in North America, and it was done in 18 months with 1950s technology.
00:05:54.140
We can build them quickly if we just get the government's, at all level, out of the damn way.
00:05:59.660
Trump's going to be in office for the better part of four years still.
00:06:03.540
If he sees Earth moving on new Canadian pipelines to the East and West by the end of this first year, he's going to take notice.
00:06:09.480
Every major party must, they must, put the immediate construction of pipelines within their platforms.
00:06:14.900
The biggest consultation of them all is an election.
00:06:17.160
With that under their belt, whoever wins will have all the social license they need to get it done.
00:06:21.540
And there will be no better time to do that than this year.
00:06:24.420
To dally? Well, that's just going to let the activists and bureaucrats slither into the project, and they'll never get done.
00:06:29.060
If that gets done, if that happens, can it, might as well get used to being the kid getting the sand kicked in its face at the beach.
00:06:34.500
Because if this nation can't even build a bloody pipeline to the coast, it deserves to be pushed around.
00:06:41.060
To start things off today, that's all I'm going to say about that.
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Hey Dave, how's it going? We've got our news editor here with the other stories.
00:06:46.200
You know, Corey, you think about what's happened in the last seven days since we last talked.
00:06:50.020
It's incredible. I mean, every day is just, like, historic, it seems.
00:06:54.740
You know, from the Zelensky White House to tariffs, it's just crazy.
00:06:59.180
I mean, what's the term? I always mispronounce that, though I write it quite often. Mercurial.
00:07:03.720
You know, I mean, you just don't know where Trump is going.
00:07:06.640
I mean, he's a kid with ADD on, you know, speed, and he just bounces all over the map.
00:07:13.520
I mean, nobody can track what he's going to do.
00:07:14.700
And you've been poking the waspiness of Trumpsters, haven't you?
00:07:18.600
The team orange man have been upset with me lately, but I'm sorry.
00:07:23.940
But he's not doing anybody any favours on either side of the border right now.
00:07:29.000
No, no, he's talking about making a whole new order, or new world order.
00:07:33.360
So our strong polls right now is putting together a story on Trump's tweets this morning mocking Governor Trudeau.
00:07:39.640
So hopefully that's up now, because he was supposed to do it while I was in here.
00:07:46.920
We've got a guy who was convicted of second-degree murder in 2020, arrested in Brooks with a pound of meth.
00:08:01.320
You know, it was a second-degree murder, four years.
00:08:03.720
I mean, I don't, it doesn't add up, you know, how these guys are getting out.
00:08:07.360
But lots of other Canadian election, liberal election follow.
00:08:12.080
We've got, ironically, Chrystia Freeland says she's going to make Mark Carney her finance minister.
00:08:18.360
Hey, you remember all the, when she finally quit the role, there was a lot of talk about Carney replacing her.
00:08:27.420
Our James Bukaboom up in, sorry, James Bukaboom, James Snell up in Edmonton has interviewed Jim Bukaboom from Commodities.
00:08:46.520
About how the tariffs are going to affect grains.
00:08:51.820
And, as you know, Mark Carney was in town last night holding a big election event.
00:08:57.700
And we tried to go along to the press conference.
00:09:01.860
And our Sean Polzer was denied entry by the Carney people.
00:09:07.280
And there's some good video taken by his colleague, Jen Hudson.
00:09:12.180
And I encourage you to read Sean's column about how Carney is hiding behind the skirts of 20-year-old students.
00:09:25.720
Just stick the young person at the door to try and, you know, explain why people who have been invited to the conference are...
00:09:34.940
And, you know, she seemed willing to let us in.
00:09:38.360
And then she obviously got told behind the curtain.
00:09:40.800
And she came back out and was, like, shaking a little bit.
00:09:48.060
You get at least a staffer who's making some bucks to take on.
00:09:50.700
Yeah, I know George Sahol was probably behind the decision.
00:09:53.080
Well, then you gotta check your wallet and everything.
00:09:54.480
Yeah, there's probably, you know, Ports Pirate himself.
00:10:03.500
All hell will break loose this afternoon as it usually does.
00:10:08.500
I'll let you get back to cracking the whip on those reporters to keep those stories rolling.
00:10:20.100
It's just constant and it's changing by the minute, by the hour.
00:10:25.440
So, again, the reason we have those reporters going out to these events, even if they aren't
00:10:31.240
allowed into them and writing on the things that we are allowed to get into and so on
00:10:37.700
So, this is, you know, I'd like to thank you who have subscribed already.
00:10:40.920
And if you haven't subscribed yet, guys, it's $10 a month, $100 for a year, westernstandard.news
00:10:48.520
I was just like an old newspaper subscription and it keeps our reporters rolling.
00:10:51.860
It keeps our columnists writing and it keeps this show going.
00:10:56.040
So, if you subscribed, as I said, thank you very much.
00:11:01.080
So, yeah, on the federal front, you know, it's funny.
00:11:04.200
And you can get those stories, it says, at thewesternstandard.news and you can see the
00:11:15.300
They are really shielding him from any critical press.
00:11:19.420
All of the politicians lately, it seems the trend is to go down to American outlets.
00:11:24.480
I mean, Premier Smith was on MSNBC the other night.
00:11:28.000
Carney has been doing American shows, a tweak there.
00:11:31.980
She's been doing American stuff down south of the border as well.
00:11:36.800
But they aren't talking to Canadian media and they certainly aren't willing to have
00:11:43.020
And that's what this Carney event was in North Calgary.
00:11:45.780
So, they sent out invitations and that's what happened.
00:11:48.840
So, media outlets got these invitations, these letters saying, you know, come cover this
00:11:54.120
So, Jen and Sean showed up and they had their letter, their invitation, but they gave it in.
00:12:00.080
And then, yes, this poor young volunteer goes back, says, okay, just a moment, I'll be right
00:12:04.120
And she comes back and says, I'm sorry, you're not allowed in here.
00:12:11.400
So, the Western Standard is basically, it's banned from covering Carney's conferences.
00:12:21.540
You know, if your candidate is your strength, your intent is to get the candidate in front
00:12:31.200
And yes, some outlets are going to be more critical than others, but if your candidate
00:12:35.000
can present themselves well, if they can give the answers, if they can do their job, you
00:12:39.960
shouldn't be frightened of getting them in front of people.
00:12:42.240
In fact, you should be eager to get them in front of people.
00:12:44.700
I know once elections get going, usually, you know, the hard part with shows like this
00:12:49.820
is you get, you know, every campaign is throwing out, hey, you know, get our candidate on for
00:12:53.100
this, that, this, that, you know, you can only book so many people for so many things.
00:12:59.120
And I mean, he made that terrible, you know, goofy mistake with, what is it, some sort of
00:13:06.100
electrical item that was manufactured, I don't know.
00:13:09.580
But he basically was BSing and he said Canada was one of these top manufacturers for this.
00:13:13.720
So Trudeau Canada hasn't manufactured them at all.
00:13:17.700
And Carney's been getting mocked on social media for a number of other things.
00:13:21.280
So their answer, though, is, is to hide them from it.
00:13:26.080
I mean, Trudeau, you can see his biggest problem is always when he goes off script, when he tries
00:13:30.440
to think, you know, he, Trudeau can read a teleprompter.
00:13:34.320
Trudeau can listen to the earpiece and say what he's told.
00:13:37.520
That's why he always does that little, uh, glass of water, uh, semiconductors.
00:13:43.060
Uh, that's the item that Carney was talking about.
00:13:46.260
But yeah, Justin, you know, he gets the question asked and of course, uh, now it's off script.
00:13:51.120
He takes a slow, slow drink of water while the voice in his ear tells him what he's supposed
00:13:57.680
Carney, as we thought was, at least he's a liberal.
00:14:05.160
So, you know, you would have thought that, uh, uh, he'd be able to answer these questions,
00:14:11.660
And he doesn't appear to be, which is really interesting.
00:14:16.000
Uh, Carney is a political creature, but not an electoral one, right?
00:14:22.740
Governor of the Bank of Canada, very tightly tied to politicians, of course, at high levels,
00:14:27.240
uh, Bank of England later on, but a different, it's a different animal to campaign to get in
00:14:33.120
front of people, to get in front of voters, to get in front of media.
00:14:36.200
And it doesn't look like he's adjusting very well to it.
00:14:39.820
And the polls have been interesting in the elections.
00:14:41.820
So we've been seeing a bounce, a surge, and, uh, it looked like the liberals have been gaining
00:14:49.220
But now in the latest poll, it looks like they've dropped yet again.
00:15:00.200
I mean, we've got, again, a prime minister, we don't know where he's going to be in short
00:15:05.380
We don't know when the next election is going to be.
00:15:07.380
And it's just a, a brutal period of transition we're stuck in.
00:15:12.860
But now we're going to bring things back a little closer and, uh, bring in, uh, Emmanuel
00:15:22.000
And they put out an interesting piece recently on, uh, uh, congestion basically of beds in,
00:15:30.640
And a lot of hospital beds are taken up by people that really probably shouldn't be in
00:15:35.460
So, uh, thank you, uh, very much, uh, Emmanuel, for, for joining us today.
00:15:42.260
So your, your piece put out, it's, it'd be up to 10%.
00:15:46.280
That's just in Alberta, but I imagine this is probably a cross country problem.
00:15:49.200
We, we have a lot of people taking up hospital space that, that would probably belong in a long
00:15:57.160
So we had a lot of what we call alternate level of care patients.
00:16:00.760
So this means that these are patients that still require healthcare services, but not
00:16:06.440
acute care or hospital services, but due to not having any other options, they end up stuck
00:16:12.560
in those hospital beds and taking and using hospitals resources for uses that are not supposed
00:16:21.260
Yeah, they're, they're not supposed to be seniors care center or people with long-term
00:16:25.660
I've seen that happen in, in hospitals as well, that perhaps, uh, facilities that would
00:16:29.540
be better suited are, are getting, getting full.
00:16:31.640
So somebody with a long-term disability of some sort is, is almost warehoused in a hospital.
00:16:35.900
But if you had an emergency, or as we saw with COVID, that those beds run out very fast.
00:16:41.140
That's how we end up with hallway of medicine where we have people in closets or straight up
00:16:46.760
in the hallway, so I, I, I would imagine though, the solution is, is to build or construct or bring
00:16:53.000
in more long-term facilities and centers for patients to go to.
00:16:56.320
So we aren't using the hospitals that way, but what were the hindrances?
00:17:01.140
So there's always constantly efforts to building and transforming and creating new spaces.
00:17:09.540
But what we're seeing is that the demand for these beds grows faster than the creation.
00:17:15.880
So what we're seeing is that despite all the new beds, there's always more demand, which
00:17:21.740
means that people wait a long time before getting access to those.
00:17:25.740
Another solution would be to look into home care services.
00:17:30.380
I mean, if you look in Europe, like in Germany or the Netherlands, they have a model where
00:17:36.040
they promote home care services, whether that is home health services or home support.
00:17:42.720
So whether that is the help of a nurse practitioner or the help of someone to just help them cook,
00:17:50.700
This, these services are less costly than hospital services or institutional services and would
00:17:57.620
help people stay longer at home and also free up hospital spaces.
00:18:02.080
So, uh, I, I guess perhaps there's some of the issue with this, I mean, a lot of those
00:18:07.360
services, I've heard some of them advertised too, there's private services that do it, but
00:18:13.160
I mean, that's a lot of a battle that's going on in Alberta is outsourcing, for example,
00:18:16.320
specialized procedures to private medical centers.
00:18:19.300
Uh, is there perhaps some resistance to outsourcing to private providers for home care or even long-term
00:18:26.680
If we look into long-term care facilities, a lot of it is controlled by the public system.
00:18:33.100
For example, patients are directed by the public system to the different homes if they're not
00:18:41.180
managed by the public home, by, by the public system.
00:18:43.940
So if there was more flexibility in that regard, that would also help because having all the eggs
00:18:49.060
in the same basket does not really work as we're seeing right now.
00:18:52.060
So have you been in communication, like the Alberta government's the one you highlighted,
00:18:56.800
but have you talked to governments, are you seeing initiatives coming down the line to
00:19:02.020
The initiatives we see all around is creating more beds.
00:19:05.460
That's definitely an initiative that we're seeing across the board.
00:19:09.440
Um, beyond that, there's a lot of restructuring that is being done in many places.
00:19:13.200
So that, that will probably come down the line eventually.
00:19:16.260
So, uh, the new beds, I mean, that's, that's, that's a term we hear a lot, you know, we hear
00:19:24.780
Usually they're talking about hospitals though.
00:19:26.620
They're talking about a centralized care model, uh, would, uh, as well, uh, decentralized models,
00:19:34.000
as you said, in European countries, uh, you know, how is, is that working out though?
00:19:38.420
Is that, uh, government funded for, for, for new centers or, or, or are they paying for
00:19:46.520
Well, there's a variety of model, but if we look into, um, the model I was telling, talking
00:19:52.120
about, which is called cash for care, that model is done through an insurance scheme.
00:19:58.760
And the way it works is that then the patients are given an envelope.
00:20:03.100
They're giving the choice of either go for the institutional route and go with the healthcare
00:20:08.520
provided by the state, or they can get an envelope of money that will then be used to get home
00:20:18.600
So that's, that's one of the model that is being used and that it seems to be working
00:20:25.620
It sounds almost like a, in a healthcare method of a voucher system is used for education.
00:20:30.520
Let, let the individual choose the facility that best suits them or the type of care that
00:20:34.820
best suits them rather than just having one standardized manner of it.
00:20:39.100
It gives patients the autonomy and the freedom to choose what care services best suit their needs.
00:20:47.660
Um, do you think maybe some of the hangup might be a little bit on it when, you know,
00:20:51.140
unfortunately it comes to liability, the lawyers get into things.
00:20:54.380
If somebody was kept in home care and incident happened, you know, it ended poorly.
00:20:59.500
And then somebody would say, well, that's the government's fault because they weren't in
00:21:04.640
So for example, in the, the model I'm talking about, the, the way it works is that there's
00:21:08.960
also community-based, um, visual vigilance, in the sense that they're making sure that the
00:21:15.560
care that the patients are paying for is being provided and that's, it is the correct care
00:21:20.860
So there is maybe akin to a social worker, making sure that the care is being provided.
00:21:28.000
And so that, that one in 10, as you said, how, how did you determine that the way?
00:21:33.020
How do you get those statistics when you, you go to acute care facilities and hospitals
00:21:37.040
to find out who has been taking up which spaces?
00:21:39.800
So essentially it's, it's, can be a very complicated measure, but then, then they look
00:21:44.780
into a patient when they don't need that space anymore.
00:21:48.780
They technically could be discharged, but due to a lack of space elsewhere, they cannot
00:21:57.600
We count each day that a patient spends in that, in that position as alternate level of
00:22:04.320
And if you count for all those days in proportion to the entire stay and the number of beds,
00:22:12.480
So have you been, um, are, are different provinces doing some different initiatives across
00:22:18.280
I mean, we were under all under the Canada Health Act, but of course it's administered
00:22:22.980
Have there been better models in, in other parts of the country?
00:22:26.400
I would not be able to tell you more about that, but I know that a lot of effort is being
00:22:31.100
put to improve our long-term care for patients.
00:22:36.300
And a lot of it is being done through creating new long-term care spaces, but there seems to
00:22:43.540
be a bit of a push to try to have more home care services.
00:22:46.300
Because let's, let's be clear, most alternate level of care patients are elderly and most
00:22:52.980
elderly would rather age at home than in an institution.
00:22:58.520
I mean, we also hear of, you know, people basically kind of getting divorced by senior
00:23:02.380
center, you know, when, when one has to go into a care center, but the other go, there
00:23:05.520
isn't space for both of them and they end up in separate spaces.
00:23:07.760
If they could be kept at home, uh, again, you could keep potentially couples together,
00:23:12.120
uh, much longer into their retirement, I would imagine.
00:23:13.960
Definitely, because also let's, let's be clear, these long-term care, long-term care
00:23:20.640
spaces are designed to take care of patients that have a variety of medical needs.
00:23:25.900
And the thing is that if a patient, let's say only needs someone to help them take their
00:23:31.280
medication on the daily or do the dishes or clean, they don't need necessarily the level
00:23:37.420
of care that is provided in, in, in a long-term care home.
00:23:41.680
That is why ensuring that these people that have, let's say less complicated need can stay
00:23:46.520
home, frees up long-term care spaces for people that have more complex needs as well.
00:23:53.140
So, uh, I guess is some of the hindrance, perhaps a bit of the labor pool too, though.
00:23:57.340
I mean, it would, uh, it's labor intensive to care for people, no matter how you look at it.
00:24:01.120
But if you centralize it, theoretically, you could do it with perhaps a smaller pool of
00:24:04.180
people versus ones who are going around to a broader area for home care.
00:24:09.860
Uh, would, would we be able to train and, and, and draw the people to be able to maintain
00:24:17.500
Hospital care is more, a lot, is a lot more labor intensive than just taking care of
00:24:26.060
So resources are being used in hospitals are a lot more intensive and are a lot more
00:24:34.020
costly, uh, take a lot more resources than long-term care and home care services.
00:24:40.820
Also home care services, they're not just health related.
00:24:44.540
They can also be, as previously mentioned, support type care.
00:24:49.460
So these are also less intensive in terms of resources, but also in terms of knowledge
00:24:57.460
Well, and I would imagine it's good for people's mental health as well.
00:25:00.220
I mean, most people don't want to be in a institutional environment.
00:25:03.700
And we know that if your mental health declines, your physiological health can often follow quickly.
00:25:07.700
If you're in your household, you're, you're going to have more access to your friends,
00:25:11.100
your neighbors, and people coming by versus being in a, in a hospital bed.
00:25:14.300
So, I mean, you know, switching to more of that model could pay off on a number of levels.
00:25:18.220
I imagine definitely there's been studies that have shown that the elderly that were in more
00:25:25.420
home environments, either more homestyle institutional care or home at home directly had better mental
00:25:33.100
health outcomes compared to more medical institutions.
00:25:38.380
Well, uh, so you're going to, was this presented or sent at least to the health minister and such,
00:25:42.860
or you're, you're trying to work with them to hope for a better policy formula?
00:25:49.260
And if they want to discuss ways that we can improve wait times for long-term care services
00:25:55.020
in Alberta and thus help overcrowding in hospital, then we'll be happy to discuss.
00:26:00.220
Well, uh, before I let you go, then where could people find your, your paper to, uh, you know,
00:26:11.180
And that's the, the, the Montreal Economic Institute.
00:26:14.460
I just like to, I've had guests from your, your group, you're great, you know, on a number of
00:26:18.380
times, it's not just a Montreal or Quebec focused by any means, uh, you, you cover issues across
00:26:24.300
So we started in Montreal 26 years ago now, and we're in also in Calgary and Ottawa now.
00:26:34.780
And, you know, just pointing out, we need more healthcare solutions.
00:26:36.780
Lots of people are pointing out the problems and just pointing out, okay, we have a problem
00:26:42.540
How can we deal with reducing that while still caring for people?
00:26:45.820
So I, I appreciate that work and, and you're coming on to talk to us today about it.
00:26:55.260
So again, as, as the Montreal Economic Institute and yes, they, they're a great site and you can
00:27:01.660
They do some studies, there's resources on there.
00:27:05.660
And you know, I, I think that's, it's one of the only things that kind of holds them back
00:27:08.620
People assume it's just something based out of Montreal.
00:27:10.300
That's the problem when you attach a, a region to the name of your group.
00:27:13.340
But no, they, they talk about things across the country and often a lot of Western things.
00:27:17.260
They talk about on energy issues often as well and cover things really, really well.
00:27:24.940
All of us, if we think about the same thing, if we get to our later years, you want to be
00:27:32.780
And I mean, our, our healthcare resources are strained.
00:27:35.740
They're, they're, they're, they're overwhelmed.
00:27:38.380
I mean, part of the, you know, I've talked about that a number of times.
00:27:44.380
I mean, there's only so many things a province can do.
00:27:46.940
And I, I get in those debates because every opposition party in every province screams
00:27:52.460
at the government for not providing healthcare right.
00:27:56.780
Our system is broken and they aren't allowed to diversify the amount of services.
00:28:01.900
So the, the provinces, you know, the NDP are in BC and guess what?
00:28:10.700
Uh, one of the issues and the excuses, the excuses they made for the overreaction and the
00:28:17.340
lockdowns and things during the, the COVID pandemic was that we can't have our hospitals
00:28:25.820
You know, even when it was getting pretty clear that COVID is virtually harmless to people under
00:28:32.220
18 who are healthy and that the survival rate for COVID is extremely high, unless you
00:28:37.260
have a bunch of comorbidities, it still made enough vulnerable people quite sick that they
00:28:44.220
would overwhelm the hospital quite quickly because our hospitals are always operating already right
00:28:52.220
So then they'd say, well, then we have to, you know, lock everybody down and stop the spread of
00:28:56.780
this 14 days to flatten the curve and all that baloney and everything and the price that we're still
00:29:01.980
But still, one of the things we should be looking at in hindsight then is why are our hospitals
00:29:09.740
And part of the, well, 10% of those beds are taken up by people who should be in long-term
00:29:18.380
This ties in, unfortunately, to some of the things that Premier Smith has been trying in Alberta
00:29:24.620
to get surgical centers outside of the general hospital, because we don't need to have
00:29:28.940
everything in that centralized location. I mean, again, if another pandemic comes, a real one,
00:29:34.380
a bad one, and we do have our hospitals being overwhelmed, part of the problem that happened
00:29:38.140
with COVID was a bunch of procedures got put off because they were all supposed to be done in a
00:29:43.580
general hospital and they couldn't do them. If they're in outside freestanding facilities,
00:29:49.340
we could still get people's hip and knee replacements done, get those items off the
00:29:55.260
healthcare list while still maintaining a general hospital to deal with people with more acute
00:29:59.420
things. But instead, we stuff everything into one centralized monster, and it's a giant bureaucracy.
00:30:07.180
But we don't know what the heck's going on now in Alberta because there's a big scandal that's
00:30:12.380
broken out because leave it to government to make a mess, it sounds like. And we're still
00:30:16.940
waiting for the details. Now, there's going to be an independent inquiry in Alberta
00:30:20.380
over what might be, I mean, we don't know yet. There's a whole bunch of allegations pushing all
00:30:25.420
over the place. But basically, uh, there might have been some backdoor type of deals or at least
00:30:31.500
some sole sourcing going to people who are going to get those private facilities pulling it out of
00:30:34.780
there. I mean, people are receptive of, uh, getting into, uh, you know, broadening care and
00:30:43.020
new options, but they do want to make sure that, uh, they're getting the best bang for the buck.
00:30:49.020
They want to make sure that somebody is not lining their pockets with health care dollars.
00:30:51.820
That's what mortifies people. They want those health dollars to be focused on health care.
00:30:58.380
Uh, you know, getting to the patient, either way, it just makes a lot of sense, right?
00:31:02.700
I mean, a person can make the rounds. I listened to, you know, on talk radio and so on. You quite often
00:31:07.260
hear, um, ads for one of those home care, uh, things, and they talk about the family keeping mom
00:31:12.460
at home longer and everything else, but that private service, I mean, they talk about it starting
00:31:16.860
at a, I believe a couple or a few thousand dollars a month. That's a lot of money. Now,
00:31:20.220
keeping somebody in a hospital costs a heck of a lot more per month than that even. But if it's
00:31:25.020
broader home care, just maintaining somebody visiting a couple of times a week or once a day
00:31:29.420
or something like that, much better than a hospital. Unfortunately, our system is just so bloated,
00:31:34.540
so bureaucratic. And I tell you what, the hangup, the problem most often is the bloody unions. You got to
00:31:41.820
remember if we start doing home care, you know, you don't need an expensive overtime gouging union
00:31:49.580
labor force to do that. You can have individuals. I mean, you know, these aren't full out nurses and
00:31:56.220
health care for people that people just to help with pills, help with bathing, help with some
00:31:59.740
shopping, little things to help people and keep them out of the hospital. But it doesn't lead to that
00:32:04.540
nice, big, sweet union jobs. So that could be problematic. It's just a big, ugly battle. Common
00:32:13.980
sense solutions, ones like Emmanuel was pointing out are there, but it's just so hard to get them
00:32:18.940
done. And then unfortunately, like I said, sometimes the corruption gets in and everybody loses.
00:32:23.660
So I saw Wildrose, a commenter earlier asking about the US 51 concept, my thoughts on it. You know,
00:32:31.820
so that's something that, uh, this president, Trump's really been rattling the Canadian chain
00:32:36.700
a lot over the, of course this for months now, uh, calling Trudeau, Governor Trudeau and so on.
00:32:43.100
I, it stopped being funny a long time ago. You know, people say, Oh, it's just trolling. It's just
00:32:47.820
trolling. Look, this is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. Who's talking about
00:32:55.660
expansionism. And even if you're a supporter of the concept of Alberta or Canada becoming the 51st state,
00:33:08.220
It's going to happen. In fact, I think we've seen more binding and bonding among Canadians.
00:33:16.780
When you've got what you see as an external threat, economically at the least with these tariffs and
00:33:21.660
such, you're seeing more Canadian flags being waived than we've seen since the convoy. And not
00:33:27.340
because they're upset with that. They're saying, I am Canadian and I'm proud of it. So if you're
00:33:30.780
independence minded, if you're us 51 minded, it's not moving you closer to that goal at this point.
00:33:38.780
I, a lot of people are thinking, I'm very much of that. I put it on X. Look, um, we, we've got the,
00:33:47.180
Mr. Rath, he's going down to Washington to pitch the Alberta 51 idea and things like that. Okay, go for it.
00:33:53.740
But, um, but it should be pitched to Albertans first. I, I, I traveled a lot. I did a lot of
00:34:00.700
speaking events and, and, uh, at a very independence, um, friendly venues. And then one of the things that
00:34:07.740
was, it was with Dr. Modry a lot. He was, he would, we were speaking together and he would always pull
00:34:12.380
the room with a straw pole and, uh, ask what, what people's visions were for things. So, I mean,
00:34:17.900
again, it's a stacked room. So he'd say, you know, what would you like to see? Would you like to see
00:34:21.180
Alberta stronger within an, you know, a stronger province, but still within Canada? A good handful
00:34:27.660
of hands would go up. Would you like to see Alberta completely independent on its own? And
00:34:31.420
most of the room's hands would go up. And then they'd say, you know, if you like Alberta, BC,
00:34:35.100
Saskatchewan, you get a whole bunch. And he'd ask about the US 51. And usually that's only a couple,
00:34:40.140
only a handful of people. They're there, they're vocal, they want it. But even among the independent
00:34:45.500
set, it's a smaller number. Now the only way I think in a principled way, I know, I know people
00:34:52.940
will send me links. Oh, Canada is actually a corporation or Alberta was never officially part
00:34:57.740
of Confederation. All those weird shortcuts, whatever. I don't even discuss it. I'm talking
00:35:01.660
about the here and now. And if you're going to be principled about it, if you really thought a
00:35:05.980
province or a region is going to step out, the only way it should happen acceptably is with a majority vote
00:35:14.060
in a referendum and a clear majority, not 50% plus one, because that's just a recipe for a nightmare.
00:35:19.020
I mean, we're talking 60% of people got to get together, vote on it and say, let's do it.
00:35:24.620
And if anybody thinks we're even vaguely close to that tipping point of support to go US 51 at this
00:35:31.740
point, it's not there. It's not the, you know, you're going to be a long ways from that right now.
00:35:39.420
And the worst thing you could do if you are an independent supporter,
00:35:41.980
if you're looking for that sort of thing is to have a referendum and lose that will set it back
00:35:49.580
by a decade. That's one of the things Quebec figured out, you know, that that's why even
00:35:53.740
though they were only 1% away from a referendum win in the nineties, why they haven't held another
00:35:59.420
one since they're finally actually just starting to rumble about it again is because they said
00:36:03.100
they're not going to do it again until they get the winning conditions. And they've been working
00:36:06.220
hard for years to try and get those winning conditions. And the conditions haven't been
00:36:14.220
there. So they haven't pulled the trigger. A commenter saying, you know, Lonnie,
00:36:17.980
so delusional Albertans want to join the USA. Okay. I'm not sure if you're saying it's delusional to
00:36:23.260
think that Albertans want to join or that I'm being delusional and you're saying Albertans want to join.
00:36:27.580
If you really think that more than 50% of Albertans want to go at this point, I think you need to get
00:36:33.740
out more. A number of people want to go, but not nearly a majority, not even close. And I'm not
00:36:41.500
saying it'll never happen, but it's certainly not going to happen right now. And I I've used the
00:36:47.580
analogy before too. I mean, if you're being courted, if you, if somebody is coming in and trying to woo you,
00:36:52.540
you know, and flirt with you and say, you know, join me, partner with me, you play a little coy,
00:36:57.980
you want some courtship and things like that. But when president Trump comes on, like he has been,
00:37:04.780
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're coming on a little hot there, buddy. Cool your jets. Let's talk.
00:37:10.140
Let's negotiate. Maybe. He's putting people off. I don't think he cares. I mean,
00:37:16.700
that's what it thinks is in general. He's just stirring that pot. I mean, realistically,
00:37:21.340
again, with the amount of, uh, legislation, I mean, nobody's asked the majority of Americans
00:37:25.900
if they want another state either. And, uh, you know, I think it's pretty important on their part.
00:37:30.140
People are making a lot of presumptions. It's an interesting discussion. It absolutely is.
00:37:34.140
And I mean, then people start talking along the lines of, of, uh, uh, you know, the, the,
00:37:40.220
the better elected senators and, and other things that are available with the United States.
00:37:44.220
Absolutely. But to the point of realistically looking at getting into that, we're just not
00:37:52.220
there quite yet, but the discussion's on more than ever. I just don't think it's moving us closer
00:37:56.380
at this point. It's moving us farther. And I mean, you know, president Trump, how, how do you deal with
00:38:03.660
him right now? He's taking people off. I mean, people say it's strategic, but strategic to what?
00:38:10.300
Give us a demand. Then people say it's about the fentanyl. No, it's not. That's enough of that.
00:38:15.660
Come on. Let's get real. That's a problem. Sure. I'm not saying there's no problem with
00:38:19.820
the fentanyl and in, in, in Canada and things like that. There certainly is, but there's nothing. And
00:38:25.980
he's kind of said, there's nothing we could have done to stop that. You know, the next day he said,
00:38:29.660
he's talking about a trade deficit of, he's saying that he's subsidizing Canada by 200 billion a year,
00:38:34.220
which is completely untrue, but that's his selling point. He says, we're going to end that.
00:38:38.460
And then he says, we're going to take all the auto manufacturing back down into the United States.
00:38:43.660
His terms keep changing with whatever he's talking about day by day. How do you negotiate with that?
00:38:50.860
Premier Smith tried. She took the, the approach of going down to talk directly. I applauded it. I
00:38:57.820
thought it was a good tactic. Head down to Mar-a-Lago, head down to the inauguration,
00:39:03.740
make your case. But what happened pretty much didn't make a difference. Whatever Trump has in mind,
00:39:10.940
there's not much we can do. It seems that's going to impact that. As Kenzie saying, you know,
00:39:17.580
not being weenies to hang on to America's coattails. I mean, that's some of the things that we've got to
00:39:24.460
at least, I mean, as I said in my opening monologue, strengthen ourselves. We've got to make sure
00:39:32.060
that we can sell to other customers because he's just shaking us around because he can.
00:39:37.340
And, and, and, and it doesn't mean we have to be fighting with them, but you've got to be on
00:39:41.420
stronger footing. So if we're going to have a president, even if it's a future president starting
00:39:46.220
to be a pain with us saying, well, you know what we can sell the, the biggest, uh, heavy
00:39:51.420
oil refinery on the planet is in India. I'm sure they would be happy to get a few more tankers of
00:39:57.100
Albertan heavy crude getting out there. People also, we were talking about light crude. Cause
00:40:00.700
they keep saying all the Americans, the only ones that can process. That's not true. Uh, plus Alberta
00:40:06.220
produces, uh, what, 370 people forget, you know, we talk about oil sands all the time, but
00:40:11.020
over 370,000 barrels a day of light crude oil conventionally. And, uh, and I think just about
00:40:18.620
as much of that conventionally in heavy crude, like we've got to look at things. Uh, you know,
00:40:24.940
Wilder's saying this isn't about border security or drugs. I think it's a mire about resources he
00:40:28.300
needs. Yeah. I don't know. It makes more sense. Right. Uh, there's an interesting with Tristan
00:40:32.380
Hopper. He was putting on the national post because president Trump, again, he took, and there's some
00:40:38.220
of the things that frustrate me with him because he's such a BS or an ES guys. He is. I mean,
00:40:45.420
if you look back only five years ago, cause he ripped up NAFTA or North American free trade agreement.
00:40:52.060
And he, and he said, we got to make a new one. And he made the new trade agreement and he trumpeted it.
00:40:57.580
He said, this is the best trade agreement ever. He said that he signed that. And now he's gotten in
00:41:05.180
five years later, ripped it up and said, it's crap. How do you negotiate with somebody who tears
00:41:10.700
up your contract? How do you negotiate with somebody who basically campaign against himself?
00:41:18.060
How, where are we going with this? What does he want? I want to get closer to the United States.
00:41:24.220
I love the United States, but that means we should be integrating our markets for integrating,
00:41:30.540
getting closer, having more business, going back and forth, both ways, having people going back and
00:41:35.580
forth, both ways. And right now they're getting pushed apart. It's easy. We're polarizing ourselves.
00:41:43.660
And, and I just, I mean, I'm a guy who likes stirring the pot. I like shaking up the establishment.
00:41:51.100
I believe in that. Absolutely. But I mean, at some point you get to the point of not just
00:41:56.780
shaking things up to make positive change. You're just shaking it up for the sake of shaking it up.
00:42:01.180
When Trump spoke to Congress last night, he was talking about taking Greenland.
00:42:07.100
Why are you going there? The Americans already have a base on Greenland. They don't need more
00:42:13.180
access to that area. There's a military base there. They have an agreement with Denmark as a contract.
00:42:17.980
What are you after? Because the people of Greenland have been pretty clear. We don't want to be American.
00:42:23.260
Why are you shaking that tree? Why are you doing that? And, uh, I, I just don't see the end.
00:42:30.300
I mean, people keep saying, Oh, he's got a plan. He's, he's got, well, it's time to start showing
00:42:35.580
it pretty soon. Make demands that stick. Then we, we want to work to accommodate, but you've got to
00:42:42.860
say something and stick to it. And it's bouncing around. I saw a good analogy or listened to one
00:42:48.140
from somebody on a radio interview the other day. It's saying, it's like trying to nail a piece of
00:42:51.820
jello to a wall. Like you just can't make a case. You can't dance fast enough to that guy's tune.
00:42:57.180
And, uh, yeah, part of our problem too, is having an absolutely weak, lame duck, incompetent prime
00:43:04.220
minister. Trudeau, I mean, look at how complicated this problem is for any leader and having him in
00:43:11.660
the front of the line. Oh my Lord, are we ever in trouble, but I don't, and I still want Trudeau out
00:43:17.340
and I want to see a better leader in. And I think it's probably going to be Paliyev and I think he will
00:43:21.500
be better than Trudeau, but I don't know how much, because you're still trying to negotiate with a
00:43:25.820
man who is as volatile as Trump. So we're in for some crazy, crazy times. Uh, the language out of
00:43:35.820
Premier Smith yesterday was very much, uh, she was standing apart from the team Canada thing.
00:43:41.980
She was standing apart from the, the, the, the Trudeau gathering of people kind of, and it failed.
00:43:49.100
And now she has jumped on board. So guess what? Trump is actually unifying Canada. So for people
00:43:55.900
who want to, a unified Canada, who, who, you know, don't want to see independence, but responding,
00:44:00.780
Trump has actually been kind of their best friend in a lot of ways. Um, because I don't think it's
00:44:06.220
making the independence sentiment grow. Uh, I used an analogy before too. I mean, if we look at it,
00:44:11.340
you know, people talk about Canada as like a big family, a dysfunctional family, and we're fighting,
00:44:14.700
you know, if you get two brothers, my brother and I used to pound the hell out of each other all the
00:44:19.020
time and they're beating on each other. They've had a few beers and they're going at it. That's fine.
00:44:24.140
But if somebody steps in between those two brothers, there's a really good chance. They're
00:44:27.180
both just going to turn and start pounding on the third force. We, we didn't need Trump coming in,
00:44:32.460
in the middle of our issue with the Ottawa. That's that, that doesn't endear us to him.
00:44:37.180
We'll take care of that here. We should take care of that here, but that's not because other people
00:44:40.780
saying, Oh, he's fixing things in Canada. No, he's not. He hasn't fixed a bloody thing yet.
00:44:44.860
In fact, it's actually led to a bit of an increase of support for the liberals. Because
00:44:48.940
as I said, when you get an outside external force, an external threat, people tend to rally together
00:44:56.220
then, even if they don't like each other, because I don't like you, but it's not his business to get
00:45:00.940
in the way and start stirring things up with me and you. So Canadians are bonding and I'm seeing bad
00:45:08.700
attitudes. I don't like seeing that. I don't like seeing the vitriol thrown out on X. I don't like
00:45:13.500
seeing people booing each other's national anthems. It's tasteless. It's pointless. It's divisive.
00:45:19.020
The Americans are our closest friends. They are our allies. They are culturally the closest people to
00:45:24.780
Canada by far on the planet. And for us to be pulling apart from each other is tragic and annoying
00:45:31.740
and frustrating. And it didn't need to happen. And I don't know when it's going to change because we
00:45:36.300
just don't know where the hell Trump is minute by minute, much less day by day. All right.
00:45:41.820
That's all I've got today, guys. By the way, my show is going to be expanding. There's going to be
00:45:44.780
another one dropping on Friday and it's going to be longer and covering a lot more on national and
00:45:50.380
federal issues. And of course, the pipeline is going to be on a little later too with our panel
00:45:53.740
breaking things down because yeah, there's just so much to cover. I'm going to have to take on another
00:45:58.940
hour and a half to two hours a week to blather it on at you. So be sure to tune in and watch for
00:46:02.700
those on all the Western standard channels, guys like subscribe, share all that good stuff.
00:46:07.420
Thank you for tuning in today and we'll see you on the next one.