Western Standard - Cory Morgan Show： Speech from the Throne

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:01:00.000 Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show.

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00:02:29.140 So the big news item this week was on the federal front, the throne speech. You know,

00:02:33.140 that's the annual, or I shouldn't say annual, whenever a new parliamentary session gets kicked

00:02:37.620 off, the Queen's representative, the governor general will give a speech that the prime

00:02:41.560 minister's office actually wrote for them, but it lays out the general plans and direction of where

00:02:47.400 the next government's going to go, what they're looking to do. So this was more of the same,

00:02:54.840 you know, big on promises, low on details, a lot more spending promises, not much detail on how

00:03:00.940 they're going to get the money to spend. So I figured the best person to talk to to break all

00:03:04.880 that down though was Franco Terrizano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He's the federal

00:03:10.040 director. He used to be the Alberta director. They transferred him out to Ottawa. Such a terrible

00:03:14.580 fate indeed, but he's continuing his important work out there. And he's actually back here in

00:03:19.020 Calgary visiting. So he came into the studio and we had a great conversation talking about the

00:03:24.180 throne speech, talking about the government policies and where they are going forward.

00:03:28.200 So without further ado, here we go. All right, Franco. Well, good to see you again. Finally in

00:03:32.600 person. I mean, we've been doing all these remote interviews. You've been doing nothing but remote

00:03:36.400 interviews. We can actually talk face to face, but on familiar subject matter as usual. So thanks

00:03:44.380 for coming into the standard studios hey my pleasure back in calgary and it's not too cold 0.66

00:03:48.620 out here for me no you got a good weather break this year coming from the evil east there where

00:03:53.020 you've been reassigned uh we've still have uh we'll forgive you yeah so i mean the the top subject

00:04:00.220 this week you know we've got federal politics going on you're the federal director now uh the

00:04:04.300 throne speech came out yesterday let's start with that what's your interpretation of what we heard

00:04:09.980 Well, Corey, as you know, a throne speech is really lays out the priorities for the

00:04:14.040 government over the next session.

00:04:16.240 Now there's a lot to chew on that was in the throne speech, but really, what really

00:04:20.020 stood out to me was what wasn't in the throne speech.

00:04:23.240 So there wasn't a single mention of the deficit.

00:04:26.060 There wasn't a single mention of the debt.

00:04:28.400 And like, I understand, we all understand there's a lot of priorities right now that

00:04:32.300 any government is facing, but come on, this federal government is up to its eyeballs in

00:04:37.040 debt, more than $1 trillion in debt, which means that each Canadian is on the hook for about $30,000

00:04:43.220 each in federal government debt, massive amount of overspending, tons of government borrowing,

00:04:48.560 and not even a single mention of the debt or deficit. A word that I actually was kind of

00:04:54.260 surprised to hear, but it was mentioned at least, was inflation, which is a consequence of debt and

00:04:59.400 spending and so on. So they do know that it's a challenge. I mean, you think maybe there's a

00:05:03.720 glimmer, though, of economic reality is starting to come into some of the planners with the

00:05:07.260 Liberal government, understanding that they just can't carry on like they have been?

00:05:10.040 Well, I think it might be the key economic issue facing your average Canadian Joe like

00:05:15.640 me or you. And look, it doesn't really take a PhD in economics to understand how the government

00:05:21.420 is driving up these prices. We're seeing unprecedented amount of government spending,

00:05:26.380 massive amounts of government borrowing. We've seen the printing press on overdrive during

00:05:31.420 this pandemic where you have too many dollars chasing too few goods. Plus, we've also seen

00:05:36.160 tax increases during the pandemic. Now, Corey, you mentioned that they at least mentioned the

00:05:41.300 word inflation, but that's one thing. But on the other hand, they also talked about increasing the

00:05:47.320 carbon tax. So it's kind of weird to talk about reducing the cost of living and then also soaking

00:05:53.240 a family every time they go to the pumps. Yeah, well, climate was, I mean, and again,

00:05:57.460 not terribly surprising to be a large part of the throne speech. That seems to be where

00:06:00.780 Prime Minister Trudeau really wants to make his stance as a, where he's going to make his mark

00:06:05.680 as a prime minister is battling climate change and bringing on environmental controls. And I think

00:06:10.080 the emissions cap was mentioned within there as well. But I mean, so we're kind of chilling our

00:06:14.660 energy industry at a time when the world wants it really badly. There's going to be economic

00:06:19.620 consequences from his actions from that front as well. And consumers are paying the price,

00:06:24.680 right? We've already seen the carbon tax hike increase twice during the pandemic. We're set

00:06:29.240 for another carbon tax hike next April 1st. Yeah, the joke is on taxpayers again. But let's not

00:06:35.940 forget that Trudeau said by 2030, he's going to be increasing the carbon tax to 40 cents per liter

00:06:42.080 of gasoline. But the pain doesn't stop there. He's also going to impose a second carbon tax

00:06:47.740 inside of these fuel regulations, which could add another 11 cents per liter of gasoline.

00:06:53.980 So we're seeing this federal government under Trudeau move in the exact opposite direction.

00:06:58.500 What we should be seeing is them providing tax relief at the pump.

00:07:02.280 We saw that in South Korea.

00:07:03.720 They just cut their gas taxes by 20%.

00:07:05.940 We've also seen India reduce gas taxes.

00:07:09.060 So they're providing their citizens with relief.

00:07:11.680 And here we have the Trudeau government, Trudeau himself in Glasgow not too long ago,

00:07:16.880 bragging about soaking Canadians with higher gas prices.

00:07:20.700 Yeah, well, and in British Columbia, your compatriot, Chris Sims, has made it quite clear

00:07:24.640 because we've had a carbon tax there for quite some time.

00:07:27.980 and it hasn't high one it hasn't reduced people's usage of those products it's just cost them more

00:07:34.160 to do it well corey i mean can you fill up your car with rainbow dust absolutely not i mean people

00:07:40.280 especially people in rural canada i mean canada is a huge country we've got a lot of people living

00:07:45.080 in rural communities you need to be able to fuel your car last i checked canada is a really cold

00:07:51.360 time uh usually this time of year december january february you need to heat your homes and you know

00:07:56.780 as you pointed out, British Columbia shows that carbon taxes are all economic pain without

00:08:03.240 the environmental gain. Chris Sims has been doing a great job showing this. Highest carbon tax in

00:08:08.360 Canada. And what is going on with emissions? They keep going up. So you're gouging, the government

00:08:15.080 is gouging consumers at the pumps and emissions continue to go up. Well, that's it. I mean,

00:08:19.280 if they could point at it and say, well, look, it worked. The emissions came down,

00:08:22.020 but we're not talking about an unproven theory anymore. I mean, the carbon taxes have been tried

00:08:25.200 and they failed.

00:08:26.320 So, I mean, it is just a tax grab.

00:08:29.180 What about some other areas now

00:08:30.520 the government talked about?

00:08:31.960 They stayed away from saying

00:08:33.120 that they're going to start backing off

00:08:34.520 on some of the pandemic programs

00:08:37.740 and things that they've been doing

00:08:39.120 to stimulate the economy,

00:08:39.940 but they didn't talk about

00:08:40.640 spending more on it either.

00:08:42.000 Do you think maybe they're going to start

00:08:43.160 moving towards bringing back

00:08:45.140 some of those policies

00:08:46.500 because we can't afford them much longer?

00:08:47.660 Well, we certainly can't. 1.00

00:08:48.920 This was always sold to Canadians

00:08:50.840 as being temporary spending measures

00:08:53.760 key on the temporary.

00:08:56.040 Now, we have heard from Freeland that they are trying to target these massively costly

00:09:02.740 subsidies.

00:09:03.560 So a more targeted approach is obviously a good step in the right direction, but we

00:09:07.300 need way more to be done on raining this massive overspending.

00:09:11.020 Now, you mentioned spending, and I actually got a laugh out of one part of the throne

00:09:15.400 speech when they said something to the effect of spending money prudently.

00:09:19.440 I laughed. In what world is the Trudeau government spending money prudently? And if this is Trudeau

00:09:25.040 spending money prudently or managing it wisely, then I would hate to see the bill for his

00:09:30.020 reckless spending. Now, let me just dive into that a little bit more. We all know that the

00:09:34.880 government has massively increased spending during the pandemic. But even in 2018, the Trudeau

00:09:41.580 government was spending all-time highs, which means that before the pandemic, the federal

00:09:46.880 government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was spending more money than, than during

00:09:51.800 any single year during the second world war.

00:09:54.780 So we saw massive spending before the pandemic.

00:09:57.780 We're seeing massive government spending and borrow borrowing during the pandemic and not

00:10:02.440 to be the bearer of even more bad news here.

00:10:05.200 But the last budget that we saw from the finance minister, Christia Freeland, her plan was

00:10:10.580 to increase permanent federal government spending by a hundred billion dollars by 2026.

00:10:16.600 Well, and the throne speech, again, was a reiteration of the campaign promises and kind

00:10:21.780 of the last mandate of the government. So nothing new is coming. And we were seeing a great spike

00:10:26.180 in spending. So we're not seeing any intention or indication that they're going to rein that in.

00:10:31.340 In some of the areas we're talking about, government efficiencies, all of the CERB payments,

00:10:36.140 things like that, we're starting to see the consequences as they're realizing a lot of

00:10:38.660 people were improperly collecting or they lost other benefits because they didn't realize that

00:10:42.500 would apply to those benefits. I mean, we've got an administrative nightmare really looming as they

00:10:47.780 try to catch up on what they actually did with all that money they tossed out there. Do you suspect

00:10:51.780 they're ever going to actually collect on payments that went out or they're just going to kind of

00:10:55.540 let that fall by the waste? You know, I don't have the crystal ball there. It's tough to say,

00:10:59.860 but let's talk about another impact of all these CRB payments or the CERB payments that were going

00:11:05.460 out. And you know this as a former small business owner, but it had massive economic impacts,

00:11:11.540 Right. Because guess what? When you pay people not to work, you're going to have fewer people

00:11:16.660 showing up for work. And, and we've really seen the federal government create the perfect storm

00:11:23.060 for inflation. Because on the one hand that we've seen the bank of Canada,

00:11:27.300 the federal government central bank print money like crazy $370 billion printed, um,

00:11:33.380 during the pandemic, a large bunk bank, a large bulk of what the bank of Canada has in assets is

00:11:39.940 is of course, Government of Canada debt, right?

00:11:43.300 So on the one hand, we're seeing a bunch of new dollars

00:11:45.820 and when the central bank prints more dollars,

00:11:48.880 your dollars buy less.

00:11:50.320 But on the other hand,

00:11:51.240 a lot of these subsidies were paying people not to work,

00:11:53.760 right, so you're propping up demand,

00:11:55.880 but you're also disincentivizing supply.

00:11:59.000 So you go back to the old saying,

00:12:00.800 what is inflation?

00:12:01.780 Too many dollars chasing too few goods.

00:12:04.680 Yeah, well, and I got into a,

00:12:06.160 well, I always get into the heated online discourse

00:12:08.940 people but you know a subject that came out because the restaurant i used to own i was talking to the

00:12:12.380 owners and they had to raise their menu prices they were talking about you know there's no sense

00:12:15.660 even going to permanent menus like we had because it's too expensive to keep reprinting them because

00:12:19.180 the inputs are getting so expensive and they're raising so fast particularly in food items

00:12:23.820 that and fuel surcharges from delivery that that they might as well just keep on the paper

00:12:28.380 disposable ones it doesn't have anything to do with the pandemic it's because you got to change

00:12:31.020 it so much but another aspect was it's terribly difficult to get staff to come back so they're

00:12:34.940 doing as people say well if you can't be in business without paying a living wage you don't

00:12:38.140 don't deserve to be in business. Well, they're raising it, but then they had to raise the prices.

00:12:41.420 And then the people online got upset. These restaurants are gouging. They're raising the

00:12:44.060 prices. They don't understand this natural. There's an economic reality. Yeah. You got to

00:12:48.160 pay the bills somewhere. You got to pay the bills. And Corey, I think Canadians right now are

00:12:53.580 learning, especially with this massive or with these huge price increases, right? We just saw

00:12:59.140 4.7% year over year increase in consumer prices, the highest annual price increase in almost two

00:13:06.060 decades. So with this type of inflation, I think Canadians are really realizing that there is no

00:13:12.220 such thing as a free government lunch. You have to pay the piper eventually. And that's why we've

00:13:17.980 always been saying that it's so important to make tough decisions today before even tougher decisions

00:13:22.860 are forced on us tomorrow. Now I talked about the trillion dollars worth of federal government debt

00:13:28.380 that break that down. And that's about $30,000 that each Canadian is on the hook for. And Corey,

00:13:34.780 I mean, I don't have tens of thousands of dollars lying around.

00:13:37.620 I know many, many other Canadians don't.

00:13:39.720 And that's why we're pushing so hard for the federal government to rein in this massive amount of spending.

00:13:45.560 Well, you always do say you tend to be the bearer of bad tidings.

00:13:48.960 Is there any silver lining?

00:13:50.100 Is there some good things you've seen in Ottawa?

00:13:51.900 Any indications?

00:13:52.720 You know, let's maybe try and end on a, there's got to be some positive glimmers hiding out there somewhere.

00:13:57.080 Well, we mentioned the fact that Freeland said that she was trying to move towards more targeted COVID-19 subsidies.

00:14:04.360 her, she herself actually said that this is supposed to be temporary. So, so that's a bright

00:14:10.280 spot, but you know what I think is a real bright spot is that we're really talking about the Bank

00:14:15.480 of Canada. Now that this inflation is going on to really talking about how if the, if the federal

00:14:20.920 government is printing all of these new dollars through its central bank, that that is a huge

00:14:26.360 factor that causes prizes to rise. So I do think that just having more of a discussion on monetary

00:14:33.560 policy could be a bright thing just to have a fuller discussion in the public the inflation is

00:14:38.440 absolutely not a good thing for so many canadians but the fact that now we can have this conversation

00:14:43.480 about the bank of canada i mean cory when was the last time anyone has had a conversation about the

00:14:48.360 bank of canada before this so we're gaining in economic literacy if only the hard way but it

00:14:53.240 could perhaps benefit us in the long run trying to find a bright spot yeah well there we go so well

00:14:57.960 thank you very much for coming in it's good seeing you back out here in the west uh and uh where can

00:15:02.920 find more information on what you guys are doing what you're up to well thanks for having me and

00:15:06.200 please head over to taxpayer.com for to see the work that we're doing check out our newsroom you

00:15:11.480 can sign some petitions on there and you can you can help join us and stick up for taxpayers great

00:15:17.640 Well, thanks again. I look forward to chatting again soon. Hey, my pleasure.

Western Standard - November 26, 2021

Cory Morgan Show： Speech from the Throne

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