In this episode of the Corey Morgan Show, I cover the Alberta Teacher's Union's strike, the growing number of charter schools, and a new guest on the show. I also talk about a new documentary by Dr. John Robson called "In the Dark: Senegal as a Case Study in Energy Poverty".
00:00:00.000Good day and welcome to the Corey Morgan Show.
00:00:29.720As we're halfway through October in this really crazy year, well maybe every year is kind of crazy, but it just feels like it gets nuttier and nuttier all the time.
00:00:38.860Stuff going on all around the world, stuff going on domestically and stuff going on here in Alberta.
00:00:43.820So I'll be covering a whole bunch of that stuff today as well as talking to a very interesting guest in about 15 minutes.
00:00:49.340It's McGat-Wade of prosperity, not poverty.
00:00:52.340She took part in a documentary that John Robson put together.
00:00:55.960If you're familiar with him, you should look him up.
00:00:57.640He has a lot of great work in Canada on political stuff.
00:01:00.860And the documentary is called In the Dark, Senegal as a Case Study in Energy Poverty.
00:01:06.400It talks about, you know, how the Western world and its idiotic environmentalism is really, really hurting developing countries a lot.
00:01:12.920And getting a first-hand account from that should be quite interesting.
00:01:47.660And yes, we will talk about, I see people are talking already about education.
00:01:51.120And that's what I want to start with here with this teacher's strike in Alberta.
00:01:54.860I mean, eventually that strike's going to be settled and there's going to be concessions made.
00:01:58.280But one concession that must not be on the table is the reduction or elimination of school choice.
00:02:05.140In fact, the UCP government should be working on expanding education options to reduce the Alberta Teacher Union's ability to hold students hostages as they are right now.
00:02:15.120Alberta's teachers turned down an offer which would have made them among the highest compensated teachers in Canada,
00:02:20.400along with a commitment to hire 3,000 more teachers and 1,500 educational assistants.
00:02:25.260Since then, though, since then, though, we see the true target of the teachers' union has emerged.
00:02:31.140While union representatives have been uttering the stock lines about class sizes and complexity,
00:02:36.380their prime target's been complaining about private and charter schools.
00:02:39.940And this is where the true nature of the strike emerges.
00:02:42.400It's a power grab by a union that wants a monopoly on education provision.
00:02:47.000The union couldn't care less about the needs of the children, and it shows.
00:02:50.400They pretend to care about class sizes, yet to forget to acknowledge that alternative education options currently take about 75,000 Alberta students out of public school classrooms when you take homeschooling into consideration.
00:03:04.020So if those options are taken away, as the union would like, how do we accommodate with that sudden influx of students?
00:03:10.100Aren't the classes already overcrowded?
00:03:11.400Not only that, how are we going to pay for it?
00:03:14.300Despite the claims of the teachers' union, kids in private schools, and who are homeschooled, save the taxpayers a load of money.
00:03:21.480Children in private schools only receive 70% of the funding per student that a public school student gets.
00:03:27.720And homeschooled children get about 10% of that funding.
00:03:30.720Students in charter schools cost about the same.
00:03:33.080So, if these options are taken away from parents and students, the public system will have to make up that shortfall, which is going to be a lower per student ratio of funding overall.
00:03:43.400The union constantly brings up the challenges of what they like calling classroom complexity.
00:03:48.940There's truth to this claim, but the proposed solution is wrong.
00:03:52.600So, we've had a decade of mass immigration policies.
00:03:55.160The number of students speaking English as a second language has increased dramatically.
00:03:58.720That's really causing a lot of difficulty in the classrooms for teachers.
00:04:03.960As well, educational trends have increasingly put children with special needs or different needs into regular classrooms.
00:04:09.320It does make for a more challenging learning environment for everybody, from fellow students to the teachers.
00:04:15.060But charter and separate schools provide specialized environments where students can receive the instruction then tailored to those needs.
00:04:22.160It actually takes the complexity out of the classroom and addresses those.
00:04:26.240We've got charter schools for English as a second language.
00:04:28.960We've got charter schools for gifted children or children who need extra help in other areas.
00:04:35.340Yet, the union wants to keep the children crammed into standardized classrooms.
00:04:39.180They're talking out of both sides of their mouths.
00:04:41.460Teachers recognize the unique needs of children in learning environments and how not all of them respond well to conventional learning methods.
00:04:48.260That's why the teachers' unions always claim they oppose standardized testing because the kids learn differently.
00:04:53.560The reality is they just don't want to see which teachers are good and which are bad.
00:04:56.720They've got to keep that merit-pay idea out of the formula.
00:05:00.880Again, they don't care about the students.
00:05:17.320Increased school choice offers more educational spaces that can accommodate the diverse educational needs, and it saves the entire system money.
00:05:25.380Those spaces don't create union positions, however.
00:05:28.180And that's where the unions have a problem with it.
00:05:30.420Not only should the Smith government stand firm against the teachers' strike on these demands, but it should make it clear it's time to develop even more choice in education.
00:05:40.560We've got underutilized inner-city schools that should be identified and converted into charter schools.
00:05:45.100The creation of more private schools should be encouraged, and parents should be reminded their children won't lose educational time due to strikes in those institutions.
00:05:52.800The government has to hold its ground against organized labor because they're trying to take full control of the educational system, and it's time to start fighting back.
00:06:00.420The choice for both teachers and students being on the table, everybody wins.
00:06:04.620Oh, except for the self-serving unions.
00:06:07.480Let's see, you know, some of the comments go in here, guys.
00:06:11.800Yeah, good afternoon to Debbie, and here's one.
00:06:16.240Paul saying public funds should not go into private schools.
00:08:27.900The students, of course, are sweating, particularly ones when you're looking at a grade 12 year, because they want to make sure they can graduate, apply for post-secondary, things such as that.
00:08:37.780And here's one from Scott Anderson, a good one to put out.
00:08:40.900I am shaking off a bit of a flu here, guys.
00:08:42.560If federal issues like immigration and inflation are hammering Alberta's classrooms, why isn't the ATA demanding federal solutions to its counterpart, the Canadian Teachers Federation?
00:12:43.740You know, again, I don't even know where to start with the pro-Hamas movement and some of their things, and what they consider victories or not victories.
00:12:52.940I guess it would be pretty terrifying to be in an airport and see if somebody could actually get into that system.
00:12:57.260I imagine it's not a critical system for other more important parts of your flight and travel.
00:13:02.820But, yeah, I guess I could certainly unnerve a whole heck of a lot of people.
00:13:07.360Either way, guys, all of that stuff is in much more detail at westernstandard.news.
00:13:11.880Be sure to check it out if you haven't subscribed yet.
00:13:15.160It's $9.99 a month, $100 a year, and you get full access past that paywall to all of those stories.
00:13:21.760If you've subscribed already, thank you very much.
00:13:34.620He says, Magat Wade of prosperity, not poverty.
00:13:38.980And it's a discussion that really needs to be had.
00:13:41.200And it was part of a documentary by John Robson, as I said earlier at the start of the show, In the Dark, Senegal as a Case Study in Energy Poverty.
00:13:49.640We really, there's a real western hypocrisy when it comes to environmental controls and looking actually at the damages it's causing in other areas.
00:13:58.320So, I'm looking forward to having the discussion on some of this and what's come up in that documentary.
00:14:03.060So, thank you very much for joining us today and welcome to the Western Standard Studio.
00:14:16.260Yeah, so Prosperity, Not Poverty is, its biggest mission is tackle the energy poverty issue.
00:14:23.780And the relationship between energy and prosperity is, I don't know if most people have seen the graph, but there is a very compelling graph that basically shows you that there is no such thing as a poor energy, as an energy poor nation that happens to be rich.
00:14:58.660I noticed you talking on the documentary about, in a hot country, if you don't have air conditioning and those sorts of things, how do you get a good learning environment?
00:15:05.820How do you get a business environment?
00:15:15.520But it's exactly where the issue comes.
00:15:16.960So, a few years ago, we had some people, I call them the anti-fossil fuel zealots, the climate alarmists.
00:15:23.260So, a subgroup of people have come up with this concept and idea that Earth was in danger of basically imploding within the next few decades.
00:15:36.420That was back in the times of Al Gore.
00:15:38.620However, you know, up until recently, some people think we only have 12 years left.
00:15:43.220I think AOC of the U.S. thinks we have 10 years left.
00:15:46.320So, even without going into, is Earth going to implode or not, which I don't believe it will, but without even going into that argument, at the end of the day, those individuals have come up with the idea to that threat, to that perceived threat, is to come to a net zero.
00:16:06.640And the best way to do net zero is, obviously, it would mean we would have to cut fossil fuels dry right now across the board.
00:16:15.500And so, it is interesting that these ideas come from the West.
00:16:20.340They came with these ideas, but first of all, they're not applying it to themselves.
00:16:24.380And thank God, because, you know, people are fighting with these ideas here, but they're still using fossil fuels.
00:16:30.060But the only people who have to respect these mandates are not the Chinese, not the Indians, because China and India have enough economic, you know, independence to say, no, no, we're not going to go for this.
00:16:46.580You do it if you want, but we're going to continue using fossil fuels to continue, you know, fueling our growth.
00:16:52.560The Indians pretty much are saying the same thing.
00:16:54.220But who is out there and does have no choice but to supposedly listen to this, it's the Africans.
00:17:00.800This is the continent that has the youngest population in the world, average age is 19.
00:17:06.220By 2050, one quarter of the world's population will be African.
00:17:09.180By 2100, it's going to be half of the world's population will be African.
00:17:13.740And you are asking people right now in Africa to basically give up on the use of fossil fuels, which is the only way for them to build prosperity.
00:17:21.320And so that's the hypocrisy you were talking about.
00:17:25.000And because we are poor, we depend on the West primarily to finance many, almost pretty much anything we need to get built, like infrastructure especially.
00:17:37.580And then the West has come to the point of saying, no, we're not going to finance any infrastructure that basically is based on fossil fuels.
00:17:44.900And what I find funny there, Corey, is I'll give you an example.
00:17:47.520My country, Senegal, we have recently found oil and gas.
00:17:50.040So while Germany says, you know, it's the Green Party of Germany that has made sure that Germany today, you know, is suffering energy wise.
00:18:00.320But when the reality hits and you have these cold winters and you really need gas and energy, then they have no choice but to put back, to fire back the coal plants, you know.
00:18:14.520And the Green Party has even agreed with that.
00:18:17.440And the Chancellor of Germany back in the day with Scholz came down to my country a few years ago to basically buy gas.
00:18:24.580The gas that they're telling us not to use, that they're commanding us not to use.
00:18:43.660That is great to have, but I mean, you have to address your more immediate concerns, such as energy and so on, to bring yourself to that prosperous level to take care of the environment.
00:18:52.060They're sort of trying to leapfrog and say, oh, well, you can jump ahead to solar panels and wind energy and then not worry about the other development that needs to come along with it.
00:19:01.200So an extension could cause more environmental damage than would it seem.
00:19:06.280And that's the other point that we're making.
00:19:07.700That's the other point that we're making.
00:19:08.620And also, if you want to stay at the environmental level, we say that your stubbornness in terms of not wanting to do fossil fuels, it's just being out of touch with reality.
00:19:39.420But that's what they cook with because they don't have access to gas, which is much cleaner and safer for everybody, for themselves, their health, and also for the environment, because it's less polluting than those other biomasses we talked about.
00:19:54.140But because the West and the anti-fossil fuel zealots are insisting on, if it cannot be fossil fuels, well, it's not because you say it cannot be fossil fuels, but these women are just going to wait there and wait for your solar stoves that don't work.
00:20:10.120They're still going to go for something.
00:20:11.480So if you keep telling them your choice is between, your choice is only solar stoves, then your solar stove is going to end up in their, like in the courtyard, maybe growing basil or growing mint, while they go to what really works for them, which is coal, charcoal, and things like, charcoal and biomass of sorts.
00:20:32.340So this is a reality of what's happening.
00:20:36.100So what you're forcing them, what you're forcing onto them is only causing more pollution to happen and nobody wins in this thing.
00:20:45.180Humans are not winning and the environment is not winning.
00:20:47.520Yeah, so is there, I guess it's difficult for governments, I mean, when they're kind of dependent and hoping for aid from other countries, you don't want to sound ungrateful and say, well, we don't want this coming in.
00:21:10.980I mean, right now, what is good is we're hearing some African leaders pushing back on this rhetoric and saying, we're going to use our fossil fuels no matter what.
00:21:20.740Up till now, it's been an uphill battle because they can say whatever they want.
00:21:24.480But at the end of the day, if you don't have a means to finance your own infrastructure needs, you're at the mercy of those who provide those resources and financing.
00:21:33.300And traditionally, it's been the West and the West has decided, especially for ESG, that they do not want to finance fossil fuel related infrastructure.
00:21:40.920So what is going on today, though, is some of our luck right now is when you have on the other side of this, on the other side from the African nations, and I speak of Africa right now, is right now in the US, we have somebody like Chris Wright, who is our secretary of energy in the US.
00:21:57.080And he's 100% on board with, we should not dictate to developing nations, to any nation, what their energy mix should be.
00:22:06.320People should make their decisions and we need to support them in what they decide to do.
00:22:10.380Otherwise, we're talking about a new form of colonialism, which is climate colonialism.
00:22:15.360That's really what we're going through right now.
00:22:17.380So, so things are starting to happen and to turn around, but then I'm worried about what happens if, if and when, because at some point, you know, Chris is going to have to move on, you know, nobody is there forever.
00:22:28.280And then if it's somebody who doesn't, who is not in line with this, then we go back to square one in terms of, so in the meantime, that's why these conversations are so important.
00:22:39.580I'm fighting this on both sides of the aisles, you know, in the Western world, reminding them of what poverty energy is all about, and that it is a great moral imperative to work on it and make sure that, at least in this case, Africans have access to fossil fuels at all costs.
00:22:55.520And also, when going back home, making the case to our people there about the need for these things.
00:23:01.760And there, the issue, what we have to fight is all of these NGOs, all of this aid money, also financing all of these climate action organizations.
00:23:12.540So, basically, putting a lot of money into the hands of young Africans who start a little non-profit and this little, you know, awareness building campaigns, and that's the biggest pushback we have on that side.
00:23:31.700So, the climate action money financing organizations along those lines, who are then in Africa saying, fossil fuels is bad for us, it's bad for our country, it's bad for our communities, we need to embrace renewables, we need to embrace wind, but not really understanding how detrimental that type of rhetoric is.
00:23:55.600So, here, we're trying to bring awareness on both sides, but on the ground, the biggest problem we have is not only you don't have enough voices speaking of the need for fossil fuels, but you also have a barrage of various types of organizations, non-profits, well-funded by climate action supporters of the West.
00:24:27.740You see some who maybe they even believe what they're saying, you know, they like to fly out and hold their banner, look at the solar panels we made, but they don't show the camera on the village over there where they have no electricity.
00:24:37.740Exactly, exactly. Or people at night, like the movie shows, you know, like we were in this one little village where literally as soon as the sun goes down, everybody knows that now they have to be inside the rooms and locked there with their doors locked.
00:24:54.040And they even have what we call pot chambers, you know, English only my fourth language, but can you imagine 2025, you have pot chambers, and why?
00:25:02.500Because once it gets dark, no one dares to go out because there are scorpions, snakes, all types of things roaming in the dark, because those things love the dark.
00:25:13.700And I would argue that I really believe that this is why we did this movie, because this other side of this issue needs to be shown to people.
00:25:25.660I think very few people think about it, and even if they were left to their own devices to imagine, they could not even begin to imagine what we're talking about.
00:25:33.300And we can't blame them, because when you're living in Canada, surrounded by what we're surrounded here or the U.S., even the concept of power outage that lasts more than a few hours, it's foreign to most people, let alone that happening every single day.
00:25:49.660You know, water that has no pressure, that is for those of us who have running water.
00:25:54.200You know, you mean you're in a village where you live with the sun, you know, at night you have to bunker yourself inside a room.
00:26:01.540You know, we cannot possibly begin to imagine all of these things, let alone think about it.
00:26:07.180So, that's why this type of movie is very important, because I think it just wakes many more people up to what else is going on out there.
00:26:16.120And as we put this type of information out, it also helps with these climate action funded NGOs on the ground who are speaking against what we're speaking about.
00:26:29.500So, at some point, the best disinfectant is sunlight.
00:26:34.040A movie like that is designed to just put it out there for people to see.
00:27:01.780So, how has the reception been to the documentary so far?
00:27:04.340I mean, so far, I think it's been really great.
00:27:08.540We've also heard news of young people who are in the audience who looked at it and were just like, this, I think, is going to resonate with my generation.
00:27:19.960And at the end of the day, the reason why I have hope in this documentary is because we did what I think is the best thing to do when there is a big argument that people are confused.
00:27:29.580At some point, let us remove the intellectual arguments and let us go back to human stories and see what we're talking about really means for everyday people halfway across the world from you.
00:27:41.540So, let us see if we can take you on a journey with us so you can walk a mile in our shoes and in the shoes of people there and show, don't tell.
00:27:50.520And then people will walk away making up their own mind.
00:27:54.720So, we had people saying they did not know and it was very helpful for them to see.
00:28:05.220And it's a competitive streaming world, too, to get the eyes and ears of people, you know, when you've got a million other things coming up, do you want to see?
00:28:12.960But, I mean, as you said, this is a huge part of the earth that really we don't talk about nearly enough, a large part of our population.
00:28:20.520No, but, you know, it's, Corey, that's what I was saying.
00:28:24.240I was doing a podcast this morning with another party and I told him, I said, the problem with energy is that it is not visible to most of us.
00:28:35.620In this room, if I say, where's energy here?
00:28:39.100Most people will think about, you know, this heater that we're hearing right now, you know, heating us and make sure we're not as cold because it's freezing cold outside right now.
00:28:46.740But when you talk, if you ask people here, where's energy, they will point to you, oh, that heater that's working.
00:28:54.620Nobody's going to think about this microphone, how energy was involved in bringing this about.
00:29:00.420No one is going to think about this tablecloth.
00:29:02.700No one is going to think about our clothes.
00:29:04.340No one is going to think about the food that we're eating because fertilizer and all of that stuff.
00:29:09.280No one is thinking about, you know, these cameras, how they came about, the screen of the camera.
00:29:14.660All of that, for any of the things that surround us, including the things we ate and the glasses you have on your nose, energy had to be part of it.
00:29:37.000Certainly, you could reduce the energy generation and still create something.
00:29:40.660But then the price of everything was out of reach.
00:29:42.840If it was too expensive, we would not have any of this stuff here.
00:29:46.000Maybe you know that you can have a pair of glasses, but maybe not the shoes you have.
00:29:51.660When things are super expensive and not abundant, then, you know, the production follows.
00:29:57.360It's not going to be abundant and, you know, not affordable for everybody.
00:30:02.140So, and that's, I think, the issue we have with energy.
00:30:06.320And I wish, and one day I will do it, somebody who is so anti-fossil fuels, I'll have standing in front of me and say, give me your glasses.
00:31:47.020There, people can see basically the principles behind the work that we're doing.
00:31:52.440I'd like to personally lead with just sharing with people the human toll of all of this, real-life example.
00:32:00.260My own example is an example of what poverty energy means.
00:32:05.120And so, but behind that, we definitely do have all types of data, all types of reports, all types of, you know, articles, writings for people who are like, wow, this is different.
00:33:10.440If you Google that up, I'm certain you'll find it.
00:33:12.500And just such an important discussion on something we all forget about.
00:33:17.360I mean, you know, you want to know when you remember energy is when you don't have it.
00:33:20.600That's when you realize how important it is.
00:33:23.740As McGat pointed out, you know, if the power fails for just an hour or two, you suddenly get a heck of a wake up call going on.
00:33:30.200And it's so, it does become a bit enraging, you know, when you look at developing countries where they have a much tougher time.
00:33:37.740They're just trying to get things rolling up to the level of development we got to enjoy decades ago.
00:33:43.600And you get these NGOs and these green hypocrites coming out saying, well, you can't dam that river or you can't have that coal-fired plant.
00:33:51.500But here, here, have some solar panels.
00:33:55.340You know, they've got more immediate needs.
00:33:57.740And we have to understand with more energy, you can have so much more other things that help with the environment.
00:34:06.560One of the issues in developing countries, you know, people talk about issues, talk about how fast the population is growing in Africa and in developing nations in general.
00:34:16.740One of the luxuries that wealthy countries can only afford is having small families if they choose to.
00:34:22.300That's a separate discussion, but that's the truth of it.
00:34:25.820When you're in a developing country, when there's unfortunately a high child mortality, when there's no such thing as a pension plan or things to assure yourself of some sort of retirement, typically what happens is you have large, large families so that you have children to be able to take care of you when you're older and children who survive into adulthood.
00:34:41.040When the countries become developed, become wealthy and so on, then people can think of things such as family planning.
00:34:47.020I'm not getting into the discussion about, you know, the morality of birth control and such.
00:34:51.060But that's sort of the way things work, because overpopulation is something in areas that causes environmental pressures.
00:34:59.500If you can afford, through energy, affordable energy, to slow the population growth, you do the environment more good as well, and people in general.
00:35:09.480It was good to get that voice on there to talk about these things and getting, you know, realistically about it.
00:35:16.540Let's just see some of these comments.
00:35:21.060Those four big banks are funding the Century Initiative of Pro-Immigration Advocacy Group from James K.
00:35:31.700Immigration will strengthen your country, but not their own countries.
00:35:34.500Yeah, it's a difficult thing to discuss.
00:35:37.880Peter Fontaine saying, we got maybe talk about health care, access to clean water, education, irrigation systems, all available affordably with fossil fuels plus economic revenue generation.
00:35:46.520And yeah, I believe that's sort of what she was getting at, right?
00:35:48.980All of those things, which are so important.
00:35:51.760And if you don't have affordable energy, you can't really have any of those things.
00:35:56.180How can you have good hospitals, health care, access to them without it?
00:36:01.180You know, they're still plowing their fields with oxen in those areas, yet basically being told you can't have a tractor to do that because that would spit out emissions, which would be bad.
00:36:15.060But it's a hypocrisy that's just no good.
00:36:35.100You know, that's an interesting automotive company we're hearing a lot about lately because a lot of our tax dollars keep getting put towards it.
00:36:42.680Because speaking of hypocrisy, environmentalism, net zero, all those dollars going to our Stellantis and all these different levels and all these plants that never opened.
00:36:50.240And they closed one plant, I guess, in 2024, early 2024, out east, to retool it, to make electric vehicles.
00:36:57.400But now that things have changed, they said, you know what, we're just moving our operation to Illinois.
00:37:04.640So 3,000 workers in Brampton are going to be put out of work there, and it's going south of the border.
00:37:11.760You know, we really got to start seeing Mark Carney's economic brilliance come into play at some point, aren't we?
00:37:18.000Wasn't he supposed to be the genius who was going to get us the trade deals?
00:37:25.940Trump is pushing Canada around like the 98-pound weakling in the back of the comic books, and Carney's just sitting there taking the slaps.
00:37:33.700We saw that in Egypt when he was kind of sitting in the back row, when they had to scramble over there.
00:37:37.480They had to charter a jet because Canada's so incompetent.
00:37:40.460We don't have the ability to fly a prime minister on short notice.
00:37:44.120So they had to get private airline to do it for them so he could go to Egypt and pretend he had even a glimmer of a part to do with the peace talks that are happening in the Middle East right now and the agreements being put in.
00:37:57.280He's, you know, speaking of just failures in so many levels.
00:38:02.000Yet at the same time, see, what's being driven home is Trump doesn't care what he thinks.
00:38:06.320And some people say, well, Paul Yevman wouldn't do any better.
00:38:12.600But if he didn't do better with Trump, because Trump's just going to do whatever he pleases, I can live with that theory on it, then you've got to diversify the economy.
00:41:07.240I mean, you know, Quebec, their license plate slogan and their provincial slogan is, you know, I remember strong and free Alberta works well for me.
00:41:18.080But we've got to, I think, break a little farther from the Federation to become fully free.
00:42:57.680Peter LaFontaine saying, let's not forget we needed, we knew we needed to diversify and grow our fossil fuel, agricultural, minerals, and forestry products for years.
00:43:05.700Don't forget, Canadian senators approve those bad laws.
00:43:08.340Yeah, we really have a lot of resources to work with, and we just got to battle against the ideologues.
00:43:16.300And again, the senators, others, you know, who sit in a comfy area and don't realize what's really happening out there.