Cory Morgan Show. The age of ESG has finally ended
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Summary
Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy's Mark Milkey joins the Western Standard's Corey Morgan to talk about Justin Trudeau and his father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and how they differ in their views on individual liberty.
Transcript
00:00:30.000
Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. This is my weekly rant and rave and guest interview show with the Western Standard. We run live every Wednesday and then it runs on a number of different channels throughout Canada, higher up on the dial there, including the Cowboy Network and Wild TV and some other areas. So thank you for taking some time out in a summer day to check out what's going on. And there is a lot going on today.
00:00:56.440
I got a guest coming on is author Mark Milkey of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. He's going to talk about Justin Trudeau and, you know, quite a difference between Justin Trudeau and his father, Pierre Trudeau, with their views on individual liberty and the importance of it.
00:01:12.140
And of course, Justin's not one for much nuanced political thought or philosophy. So not too shocking. There's quite a difference between the two and with how they approach things as well.
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Of course, lots of news and other such good stuff.
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So I'm going to get started with talking about something that kind of surprised me. I guess it shouldn't. And that's with ESG. You know, we hear about ESG a lot in the news and there's been a lot of talk about it.
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And it sounds like finally it's this, this, it's an investment fad and it's coming to an end. The whole concept of ESG, I mean, it was flawed from the beginning.
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So ESG, if people aren't familiar with it, stands for environmental, social, and governance. And it's been pushed by extreme woke activists for years. It's some of a catch-all term.
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And they use it to try and pressure corporations into prioritizing social activism over actually pursuing a profit for shareholders.
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The term ESG originated from a 2004 United Nations report. Yeah, the UN. Shocking, isn't it?
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But it was claiming companies should set aside a profit focus. And if they just took on enough environmental and social justice work, it would be beneficial to the public and to the companies themselves.
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Now, the concept is utter pie-in-the-sky bunk. And despite nearly two decades of effort on this crap, it's finally failed.
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I mean, corporations only exist for one thing, and that's to make a return for the shareholders.
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They're not charities, nor should they be expected to be.
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I mean, while good corporate citizenship can aid with a company's public reputation and help build brand loyalty, ESG goes well beyond that with its demands on corporations.
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Profit is supposed to be considered a secondary goal to ESG.
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Now, the ESG movement, I mean, is rather insidious and compelling. It's really backdoor socialism.
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Rather than trying to directly convince companies to embrace woke policies that run counters to the company's own objectives,
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they would target instead things like large asset management companies and get them to push the ESG.
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Basically saying, don't invest in it unless they have a high ESG score.
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Now, BlackRock is a company you've probably heard of now and then, and it was a leader in pushing ESG upon companies.
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It was kind of thought that even if consumers don't really care about ESG targets,
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the companies would embrace ESG policies if they were strangled from incoming investment by these management companies.
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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the name sort of works, doesn't it, spearheaded such efforts.
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Now, Fink now is distancing himself from the entire ESG movement.
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He says, whoa, whoa, okay, okay, no, that's enough of that. We're not going to do this anymore.
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Yeah, but he did a lot of damage on the way up.
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Because shareholders will only put up with so much.
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They want a return on any investments they entrusted to these asset managers,
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and they couldn't care less if the company has unisex washrooms or sets its emission targets above and beyond those required by legislation.
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They're demanding investments in profitable companies rather than woke ones.
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Retailers, I mean, they can't pay the insane living wages demands being made by woke people
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while maintaining competitive pricing, of course, because then they scream about the inflation when the costs go up.
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And then, of course, adding environmental regulations doesn't win any government love
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because the governments just keep piling on new regulations on top of the old ones.
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Appeasing the woke in the name of ESG has only managed to make profits smaller.
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Some ESG-inspired idiocy will go down in business history, such as the Budweiser debacle with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.
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Even a first-year marketing student should have seen the consequences coming
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when Budweiser decided to take on the flamboyant Mulvaney as a brand ambassador.
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Budweiser had over a century of carefully cultivated market development under its belt.
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The brand loyalty for Budweiser was the envy of the very competitive beer industry,
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and it was shattered by this bizarre choice to go down the trans activist rabbit hole.
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How could somebody have thought for a moment that a market demographic made up predominantly of cowboys
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and blue-collar workers would want their favorite beer associated with a colorful trans activist?
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It's not a question of tolerance. It's just knowing your market.
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The thing is, the luminary who came up with this idea to bring Mulvaney on as a brand ambassador
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She was wrapped up in the mythical world of ESG.
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It might take a generation for Budweiser's sales to recover to where they were only last year.
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Nobody chooses their consumer products based on ESG scores.
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Investors don't pick investment vehicles based on ESG scores either.
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The reality is finally coming home to roost, and as the old saying goes,
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Silicon Valley Bank, they went broke, and they went whole hog with ESG.
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In his 2022 ESG report, yeah, an ESG report, the company said it seeks directors on its board
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with knowledge of or experience with key risk oversight and risk management functions
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Yeah, Trudeau-style word salad, ESG garbage, and it led to the collapse of the bank.
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The list of ESG failures is growing, while ESG language, though, is finally disappearing from corporate boardrooms.
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One of the dumbest and most expensive social trends in human history is finally just coming on.
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Unfortunately, though, as with supporters of communism, the supporters of ESG just think,
00:06:17.460
They will rebrand the concept and try and push it through another way.
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In the end, though, money talks, and ESG walks.
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So, let's celebrate at least the end of this incarnation of backdoor socialism, guys.
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ESG is a thing of the past, and, well, let's see what they turn the next efforts into.
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Let's get on and see what else is happening out there in the news
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and check in with Dave Naylor in our newsroom there.
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It's an absolutely beautiful day, and Environment Canada has issued a heat warning for Calgary,
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I understand you now have a foolproof plan on protecting your bees from bears.
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For those who don't know, I keep bees, and, yes, a bear wiped out my bees last year.
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No, I am going to hit Home Depot or one of those stores, maybe Walmart, wherever,
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get those cheap, motion-activated, weird Halloween decorations,
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and I am going to surround my beehive with those this fall.
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And, you know, it should give the bears nightmares,
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and maybe even any inquisitive neighbors might stay away.
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That's true, but you think it's going to scare a one-ton grizzly bear, do you?
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I'm trying every other way to stop that thing rather than shooting it.
00:08:03.680
No, no, I'll be taking it pretty easy for Canada Day, I think.
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Jane's got some sort of barn quilt thing she's got to put up down there.
00:08:13.500
Well, if you were planning on hosting a barbecue, you better – you haven't bought your meat yet.
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You better get ready to dig deep into your wallet, because beef prices are set to soar.
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That's our top story on the website at the moment, Corey.
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Our agriculture energy business expert, Sean Polzer, says the number of cows in Canada
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is down to levels not seen since the 1990s, and that's why the price of your Canada Day steak
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is going to send shockwaves through your wallet.
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We've got a story on how the Saskatchewan government hired an advertising agency
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to encourage people to get vaccinated during COVID, and the agency admits they used fear tactics
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and scare tactics to try and convince people in Saskatchewan to get jabbed.
00:09:07.160
Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean today announced that last month Alberta oil production increased 4%.
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It also means, interestingly, that Alberta itself was the fourth biggest oil producer
00:09:26.720
We've got a story from Barry Cooper, the esteemed Dr. Barry Cooper,
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on the looming threat of laws coming in where it will make it illegal
00:09:41.180
And a very disturbing story this morning from Jonathan Bradley, our reporter.
00:09:47.180
The ICE team investigators launched a massive three-month investigation
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where they arrested eight Calgary men, sorry, seven Calgary men,
00:10:03.860
It's just sickening, Corey, just absolutely sickening.
00:10:10.000
You can read about NASA's plan to start mining on the moon.
00:10:14.500
Apparently, they want more than cheese out of there.
00:10:17.560
And Norway, even though, you know, everybody, or Canada's backing away from making investments
00:10:26.540
in the oil industry, the government of Norway announced $18 billion in new projects.
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So Canada's going one way, Norway's going another,
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and I think I'd rather be on the Norway train, Corey.
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I mean, they've got a terrible taste in food, but they're at least pragmatic with their energy resources.
00:10:45.100
That's right, and the Heritage Savings Trust Fund that dwarfs ours.
00:10:53.240
Some good news and bad news in that whole mix there.
00:10:55.660
I guess it's good that they caught those sick monsters with the child porn stuff,
00:10:59.580
but it's just sad that we've got to keep hearing those reports of it.
00:11:09.020
Well, thanks, and I'll check in with you after the show, Dave.
00:11:16.700
Yes, he's in there in that newsroom and curating and making sure all those good,
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interesting, and important stories get up there on the Western Standard site.
00:11:25.660
This is where I nag you to help us pay the bills.
00:11:27.340
Guys, the reason we can do it is that we have subscribers, $9.99 a month, $100 a year.
00:11:34.440
You can get full unfettered access to all of those stories past the paywall,
00:11:38.040
and it helps fund things like this show, those stories, having reporters all over the place.
00:11:43.240
So, you know, if you haven't subscribed yet, guys, get on there and do it.
00:11:50.560
This is how we're going to beat the subsidy wars and stuff's going on out there.
00:11:56.400
So, yeah, let's see what this thing with the drilling on, you know, on the moon.
00:12:04.260
I noticed somebody else asking about a timeline on that, one of the commenters.
00:12:07.700
Yeah, and that's, they're looking, I guess, a rig is going to test the soil on the Artemis mission of 2024,
00:12:14.680
But, I mean, we'll see how long it is before they get to the point where anything looks financially viable
00:12:27.240
We talk about a last frontier for us to get into.
00:12:30.140
What I'm wondering, though, of course, is how long is it going to take before environmentalists lose it
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and say we have to leave the moon pristine because there aren't an infinite number of them
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So if we don't do that, you know, the world will end.
00:12:46.700
Could you imagine a heat wave on the moon or a cold snap?
00:12:55.200
If somebody's got something in mind that's innovative, interesting, and has potential,
00:13:02.440
And chances are somebody in Canada will support that.
00:13:08.440
So Norway, yeah, Norway's been expanding its North Sea work.
00:13:11.680
People keep pointing to them as this great example, as a world citizen and an energy producer
00:13:19.820
But Canada, we're punching ourselves in the knackers.
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It sounds like Alberta increased its oil production, and that's great.
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But that's despite the efforts of the federal government.
00:13:30.480
It's despite Trudeau trying his hardest to make energy as unviable as possible in Canada.
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Meanwhile, Norway is smart enough to say, hey, world demand is going up.
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People want oil and gas, whether they like it or not.
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When it comes to actually hitting the light switch and having the lights come on, that's
00:13:55.820
You know, people talk about that massive fund that Norway has.
00:14:02.400
It's a big anchor hanging around the neck of Alberta.
00:14:05.860
We've had to pay, of course, billions and billions in equalization.
00:14:08.740
Anytime we make money, we get it drained out of us to keep feeding our eastern parasitic
00:14:17.480
So, you know, it's not fair to make a direct comparison between Norway's resource management
00:14:26.960
And they have different challenges ahead of them.
00:14:29.760
You know, with the pragmatism, the expansion coming from Norway with expanding their conventional
00:14:34.940
energy exploration might inspire some of our decision makers in Canada to realize, yes,
00:14:41.300
We've got to, you know, sure, eventually, eventually, maybe in a century, oil and gas
00:14:47.400
But that just tells us, well, let's get it out and use it while we can then and while
00:14:54.000
Hard to say, though, because the folks in charge aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
00:14:58.120
So let's get on to talking about the head knife in the drawer in Ottawa.
00:15:04.540
And author Mark Milkey has written a column recently on some of the differences between
00:15:08.780
the junior Trudeau and the senior Trudeau with their attitudes when it comes to individual
00:15:22.920
Yeah, it's kind of a good time to talk about this.
00:15:25.480
And it kind of ties into your last book there, in a sense.
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I mean, you know, identity and individual rights, things like that.
00:15:35.800
We can respect the individual while still having a collective identity, right?
00:15:40.140
Well, the collective, it's important to make distinctions.
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And in the 1867 project, I quote Pierre Trudeau, of all people, on these distinctions.
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Collective action, you know, I'm an individual guy, you know, rights kind of guy.
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But obviously, there's a point for the collective, if you mean government, at some point, ostensibly
00:15:58.880
to do things that as individuals or, you know, private businesses can't be done, right?
00:16:03.380
I mean, only hardcore libertarians think, you know, maybe the trans-Canada should be privatized
00:16:09.600
But most people grasp or get that, you know, there's a need for government.
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You need governments for armies, you know, to fight the Nazis in the 1940s, that sort
00:16:20.240
So, but the point is, the collective exists for that, but they have to treat us all equally.
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The government has to treat us all equally as individuals.
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That's the beauty of 500 years of enlightenment thought, and especially in the Anglosphere,
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where he said the individual is worth something.
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Treat the individual equally, morally equal, which means what?
00:16:39.440
Which means the state shouldn't be saying to me or you, you're going to be treated differently
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because of your skin color, your ethnicity, where you were born, your gender.
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Now, it took a long time to get there, probably until the 1950s and 1960s, really, in parts
00:16:53.440
of the world, or at least in the Western world, rather, especially in the United States.
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But we got there, and it's crystallized in Martin Luther King's famous 1963 speech that
00:17:04.680
he wanted to see a world, in the case of his country, where his children would be judged
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on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
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So people are, again, being treated as something other than individuals in law and policy.
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But that's a long way of saying, yeah, look, the collective exists.
00:17:26.140
But it shouldn't be allowed to take a whack at you or me or anyone else based on irrelevant
00:17:32.440
Yeah, well, and a totally different philosophy.
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I mean, aside from the name Trudeau, and I guess the amount of loathing Western Canada
00:17:40.200
has for him, Justin Trudeau is quite different from his father.
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I mean, Pierre Trudeau, among his many flaws or whatnot, though, he's still a classic liberal
00:17:48.780
in a number of ways, like things such as getting government out of the bedrooms of the nation.
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I mean, to give a little credit where we're doing, I don't give a lot to Trudeau's.
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Their rights are paramount, and it's not our place to regulate that.
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Whereas Justin Trudeau seems to be getting increasingly intrusive into the lives of individuals
00:18:17.280
And, you know, to be fair to the historical record, he probably introduced a little bit
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of, you know, collective, you know, group rights type thinking, you know, in part of
00:18:25.060
the Constitution because of the affirmative action clause or, you know, the equity clause,
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I call it the racial and, you know, gender discrimination clause.
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But, you know, Pierre Trudeau at least would argue he was consistent when it came to Quebec
00:18:40.760
That the French could discriminate against the English.
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And it's why he was such a fervent opposition, you know, oppositional figure, you know, to Quebec
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Justin Trudeau has almost none of that, as far as I can tell.
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He really believes that Canada is some sort of weird post-national state where you don't
00:19:00.800
And also that it's the government's role to discriminate against people based on the
00:19:07.520
fact that, you know, if you measure different groups, they have different outcomes.
00:19:11.580
You know, the best performing cohorts in Canada are, you know, usually from East Asia.
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Or if you're, you know, an Indian extraction, your ancestors.
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And I mean, as in, you know, India in India, not indigenous.
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Higher education levels, career choices, that sort of thing.
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You have different outcomes between different groups because different choices, different
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educational levels, different geography, different histories.
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Very little of it has to do with racism these days.
00:19:40.000
But Justin Trudeau wants to micromanage outcomes to make us all equal, so to speak.
00:19:46.160
As the famous American economist Thomas Sowell once said, people, the same people in a family,
00:19:52.760
brothers and sisters who grow up, will have vastly different outcomes, even though they
00:19:57.500
You can't always blame different outcomes on racism.
00:20:00.420
But that's what's driving a lot of this these days.
00:20:02.540
And again, Justin Trudeau, unlike his father, Pierre Trudeau, Trudeau understood that, you
00:20:09.240
know, it's very dangerous to give collectives power.
00:20:12.660
So you give a collective power based on its religion or language or ethnicity to lord it
00:20:18.960
Again, the best example in Canada is what French ethno-nationalists do to minorities,
00:20:28.260
But it's also dangerous because people eventually clash over such things.
00:20:32.540
Well, let's say when we talk about, I guess, just, I mean, unity, it's a term we hear a
00:20:38.520
But we seem to be, I think, I see more signs of regionalism and regional division and even
00:20:44.680
division within the regions now that identity politics are really sinking in.
00:20:49.020
The country is actually more fractured than ever, rather than working in a common direction.
00:20:57.640
Maybe provincial divisions have always been there, right?
00:21:03.840
I grew up in British Columbia and the Charlottetown Accord was on that referendum in 1992.
00:21:08.380
I can tell you most British Columbians, even more than Albertans, voted against it because
00:21:12.280
they didn't like the idea of Quebec having special status, which it's got all, you know,
00:21:21.480
So the divisions, I think, have been there, but they've exacerbated.
00:21:24.940
And now the federal government and others have brought in divisions based on color, based
00:21:34.520
What's a more positive way to think about Canada on candidate?
00:21:40.140
Well, it's the old fashioned, what is known as classical liberal, but today might be considered
00:21:44.360
small C conservative ideas that you don't, that you celebrate people based on who they
00:21:50.580
You don't discriminate, discriminate against someone based on irrelevant characteristics.
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And what that means is you celebrate the good ideas out there.
00:22:02.380
I mean, classical liberalism that came from John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft and the
00:22:06.480
rights of women can be, can be adopted by anyone.
00:22:10.900
When Hong Kongers protest against Beijing and the crackdowns in Hong Kong over the last
00:22:16.180
several years, you would often see them raising the British flag.
00:22:20.100
They understood that the British inheritance, for example, is about the rights of the
00:22:24.220
individual, about capitalism, about the rule of law.
00:22:31.160
There's bad ideas that people can unite around and they have in history.
00:22:34.500
There's bad ways to unite and it's, you know, only my religion or my skin color or what
00:22:39.060
have you, and that's rife throughout history, which is why we shouldn't repeat it.
00:22:42.780
But for sure, Canadians can and should unite around laudable ideas that, you know, various
00:22:49.100
founders had a glimpse of and pushed to some degree.
00:22:53.100
But certainly in the 20th century, starting in the 1950s, Canadians were supposed to be
00:22:57.760
united around the idea of the equality of the individual and other beneficial aspects
00:23:03.200
of modern nation state, capitalism and the rest of it.
00:23:05.880
That's what we should actually unite around these days.
00:23:11.040
Well, yeah, and we seem to have some, I guess, culture wars going on in Canada.
00:23:16.780
I mean, we've seen some of that just recently in Calgary.
00:23:19.780
City Hall didn't understand why a minor move such as getting rid of fireworks blew up the
00:23:27.420
I mean, the bottom line is there are some people who feel that Canada Day is supposed to
00:23:33.720
It's supposed to be when we're supposed to dwell on the negatives that happened historically
00:23:37.780
And there certainly have been some negatives rather than taking one day, though, to say,
00:23:42.000
hey, we can still celebrate the positives while acknowledging the negatives.
00:23:46.400
I mean, they treat it as if it's mutually exclusive.
00:23:48.680
And it's I think it's really making Canadians depressed about their own history.
00:23:53.960
Well, that's one of the things we tried to approach in the 1867 project, right?
00:23:57.600
The new book that, you know, I and 19 other people wrote.
00:24:00.280
We tried to give people a sense of Canadian history with nuance, with balance, with informed
00:24:05.780
history, and also to kind of change the way some people view Canadian history.
00:24:10.920
I think the majority of Canadians think we should feel proud of Canada.
00:24:14.760
They may not, you know, and they're not part of the minority of the chattering classes that
00:24:20.320
So I think most Canadians get that we should celebrate or cherish Canada.
00:24:24.380
They may not fully conceptually have worked out why or why the, you know, those who want
00:24:31.840
And so what we try and do in the 1867 project is make people think about Canada.
00:24:37.700
And the best analogy I can give you, Corey, is Canada and other civilizations are like oak
00:24:47.280
In history, you've seen what I would, the analogy would be diseased limbs.
00:24:52.580
Indigenous folk were denied the right to vote in the late 1800s by parliament, finally given
00:24:57.060
it in 1960 under John Diefenbaker, that parliament.
00:25:01.500
Those were, you know, the bad policies were diseased limbs that were right to be pruned.
00:25:05.360
But that doesn't mean the project was a bad idea, that the oak tree, which shelters people,
00:25:11.400
Canada, as an oak tree, has sheltered tens of millions of people over the decades.
00:25:15.640
Unlike, say, Chairman Mao's China in 1960 in the Cultural Revolution, while Canada is
00:25:21.080
giving the vote, rightly, to Indigenous Canadians, Chairman Mao is persecuting his own people
00:25:26.940
and causing mass starvation and famine because of his ideological Marxist beliefs.
00:25:37.560
The key question is, are certain united as preferable?
00:25:40.920
When Hong Kongers celebrate the ideas of freedom, the rule of law, capitalism, what they're saying
00:25:45.080
is, we prefer these to what's north of the border in Beijing.
00:25:48.620
And it doesn't matter if those ideas originated with John Stuart Mill and others in the 19th
00:25:53.900
What matters is that they're a good idea and anybody can adopt them.
00:25:57.520
You don't have to be, you know, a white person to be an Indian and say capitalism is better
00:26:05.100
So, you know, you can take some of what the British left behind and leave what you don't
00:26:14.960
We've had some great ideas for a very long time.
00:26:16.840
We abolished slavery before almost every country on earth.
00:26:20.180
We shouldn't look down to our shoes and be ashamed of that.
00:26:28.080
And Canada got rid of it almost before any other country on the planet.
00:26:32.640
So rather than be ashamed of sort of Canada's past, it's like you have to ask the question,
00:26:37.980
why did we break away from that faulty thinking on slavery?
00:26:42.220
Well, there were reasons for that, which I won't go into now, but they matter.
00:26:45.680
And that's why we should cherish Canada and not cancel it.
00:26:48.500
So that's kind of it, which is the subtitle of the 1867 project.
00:26:51.940
Yeah, well, and so with what we've got going on out of Ottawa, though, and mixed signals
00:26:57.440
almost coming from the prime minister, but some of that is, I mean, is it a matter of
00:27:01.620
it being politically expedient for him to play these politics of division and identity?
00:27:05.340
Or has he really got actually some inherent core feelings, you know, that mold his ideology
00:27:11.920
Because, I mean, the first one perhaps can be changed if it's entrenched in him.
00:27:15.440
He might continue like this for the rest of his term.
00:27:23.020
If he tells people that, look, you know, privilege is a real thing, white privilege is, that it
00:27:33.420
But it's partly probably sincere belief, and I wouldn't rule that out either.
00:27:38.500
Again, to quote Thomas Sowell, who I mentioned, I think, in my previous book, but also this
00:27:43.380
one, the 1867 project, Thomas Sowell tells a great story of how, look, if you look in
00:27:48.720
history, the Italians dominate the fishing fleets around the world.
00:27:53.460
Is it because the world was systemically biased against the Swiss?
00:27:58.860
So you would expect over decades and centuries that the Italians to dominate the fishing
00:28:05.720
It's the same with, you know, simplistic looks that say, again, outcomes and incomes today.
00:28:10.600
There's a reason why indigenous Canadians are lower than, say, other Canadians, and why,
00:28:16.360
you know, those of Japanese, Chinese, or Taiwanese, or Korean ancestry at the top of the income
00:28:24.440
The families are often more together, which matters to stability and other reasons.
00:28:29.440
So indigenous folk often are in rural locations, often on reserves, far from opportunities,
00:28:37.080
So there's reasons, you know, and I think Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, simplistically looks
00:28:41.940
at differences in outcomes and goes, well, the reason must be due to racism.
00:28:46.100
Why would you be so monocausal, Mr. Prime Minister?
00:28:50.020
I mean, there can be, as you said, a number of factors, I guess, before closing out.
00:28:53.780
I mean, it's a very interesting book, The 1867 Project.
00:28:56.340
And you've got a number of our authors contributing towards that.
00:28:59.520
So it's an anthology or a collection of essays, I guess.
00:29:02.880
Before I let you go, then, where can people find your book and get themselves a copy?
00:29:10.860
You can also check out aristotlefoundation.org.
00:29:19.200
And just with the Aristotle Foundation, so that's a think tank here you're operating.
00:29:25.140
It's a new think tank that I and others have set up, about 30 senior fellows, a great board
00:29:30.620
And we've already been publishing some material, including the 1867 Project.
00:29:34.600
But we set it up very simply to make people think.
00:29:38.060
Well, we need more people thinking, that's for sure.
00:29:42.700
Well, thank you very much for joining us again today, Mark.
00:29:46.080
And I appreciate your work with the book and the foundation.
00:29:48.960
Is there anything you'd like to let the audience know before I let you go there?
00:29:52.420
I think we need a return to reason, sensible democracy, and an old-fashioned word, civilization.
00:29:57.380
And that's also what the Aristotle Foundation is about.
00:30:02.700
And I think you'll be intrigued by what you see.
00:30:08.480
So that was Mark Milkey with the, yes, the 1867 Project.
00:30:12.420
He's been the author of a whole number of other books.
00:30:14.220
I still remember going way back to Tax Me, I'm Canadian.
00:30:19.640
It was a great book when he was with the Taxpayers Federation.
00:30:24.760
There's always a lot of common sense coming from Mr. Milkey.
00:30:34.580
You know, and as I said, we need more thinkers, more people putting their ideas in.
00:30:42.020
You know, when you look at a complicated issue, outcomes, things like that, and then, you know,
00:30:46.500
if Trudeau just simplistically points at one cause, it could be a contributing cause.
00:30:53.240
So speaking of thinking a little harder, it's something I need to do now and then as well.
00:30:58.760
I mean, I've still got a while before we go here, but just getting on to where I, you
00:31:04.920
It's a lesson I learned that I should know better just a couple of days ago.
00:31:11.440
Those who know me, I spend a lot of time there.
00:31:15.800
There's not a great place for nuanced discourse, though, and things.
00:31:21.320
You've got to watch it on social media, of course.
00:31:24.120
And the way I've said it before a lot of times is we've got more access to information
00:31:27.360
than we've ever had in human history, but we've also got more access to BS than we've
00:31:35.420
It showed, some of you who were on Twitter might have seen it, this big husky balding
00:31:40.180
man with, he's out there playing rugby with a bunch of women and he's running.
00:31:46.160
And this Twitter story was saying that apparently during a rugby team, this guy's identifying
00:31:52.300
as trans and he joined the woman's team and three women got injured in a rugby match out
00:31:57.540
in Ontario because this great big husky man was among them playing.
00:32:03.360
This guy would have a great advantage over, of course, people who are, you know, biologically
00:32:08.240
And he was, you know, you can envision them, him slamming them around like so many mannequins
00:32:16.700
This is a, I was actually thinking I'm going to write a column on this because there's so
00:32:19.420
many lines getting crossed, it's just getting so ridiculous with the trans world with,
00:32:23.620
with pushing on at least the activist end of things to the point of actually putting
00:32:29.600
I mean, my thoughts were, this is a guy who is, um, probably somebody just wants to abuse
00:32:36.100
He doesn't even look like he's dressed like a woman or anything like that.
00:32:38.980
Once I started researching, I couldn't, it didn't happen.
00:32:44.280
It's just a picture out of context with some text.
00:32:47.340
But I, I cannot, if it did happen, it's been scrubbed from history everywhere.
00:32:52.900
There's no rugby league in Ontario saying this happened.
00:32:56.060
There's no team members saying this happened on either team.
00:33:01.360
There's no eyewitness accounts saying that this happened.
00:33:07.980
I tweeted a couple of things with my usual rage tweeting, you know, saying how ridiculous
00:33:11.120
this is and how, you know, this is going to lead to broken necks with women.
00:33:14.320
And, and, uh, well, it won't because it didn't happen.
00:33:17.840
Now guys, it doesn't matter how outrageous things are getting them.
00:33:21.540
We don't need to go to the juicy, smaller level of making up controversy.
00:33:29.180
We discredit ourselves when we put stuff like that out there on social media.
00:33:35.940
And, uh, yeah, Tracy's saying it was on Sky News.
00:33:39.840
Yeah, it's getting around, but I can't find evidence of it.
00:33:46.260
So if somebody can find real evidence, this is showing, that's what I mean.
00:33:51.880
I saw some heavy duty Twitter accounts also of, of, of media personalities were sharing
00:33:56.320
this thing, but it's, to my knowledge, it didn't happen.
00:34:06.220
I'm not going to heavily research everything I retweet or share or talk about.
00:34:10.060
And the reason I dug deeper was because I was considering writing a column on it.
00:34:13.420
And then of course, when I'm going to write and commit this to print or, you know, digital
00:34:17.340
print through the Western standard or wherever else I might be writing, I want to make sure
00:34:21.800
I want to find out where this happened, who it was, what's the name of the people involved,
00:34:28.460
And it's not new, you know, stuff, like I said, being spread on social media, it happens
00:34:36.060
We can all fall for it now and then too, but the responsibility does land on us.
00:34:41.540
This is part of the stuff that people like Trudeau used to say, see, see, this is why
00:34:51.060
No, no, we have to be responsible for ourselves.
00:34:59.760
Because if we don't, it invites them to take that on.
00:35:02.980
And we know that they're only going to fact check what's practical for them.
00:35:07.100
So either way, I'm just saying I made a mistake, not in a huge way, at least any more so than
00:35:19.800
I mean, part of the reality too is things are so ridiculous and outrageous with the
00:35:23.680
extreme end of the trans activism that it was believable.
00:35:28.280
I mean, we see it with that Leah Thomas, this what, six foot two man who's a swimmer who's
00:35:34.400
just blowing women out of the water, you know, pun intended, on the swimming races throughout
00:35:41.560
This isn't somebody who's presenting as a woman.
00:35:43.520
He's got all his junk and his parts intact, and he's just out there defeating women in
00:35:49.660
But as outrageous as that is, it doesn't put them at physical risk.
00:35:54.480
It's still ridiculous, and the guys shouldn't be in there.
00:36:00.040
This was a person in a physical sport that theoretically would have really hurt somebody
00:36:06.660
But again, as I said, as far as I can find, it did not happen.
00:36:10.440
But so we need to watch ourselves when we're on social media.
00:36:18.300
And I mean, you know, real damage can get done.
00:36:21.080
I have a fair-sized Twitter following, and sharing and tweeting and getting on with those
00:36:25.320
things can spread a lot of mistrust or anger into an area for something that didn't happen,
00:36:31.540
So speaking of the massive media in general, let's have a look at that.
00:36:34.560
You know, Rodriguez, our heritage minister, federally.
00:36:37.340
Basically, it's looking like Facebook isn't going to back down, guys.
00:36:41.580
They're going to start blocking news links out there.
00:36:45.200
Google might follow soon, too, based on C18, you know, which is a shakedown.
00:36:48.400
It's basically trying to steal money from social media companies to subsidize preferred
00:36:55.440
It's a disgusting policy move, and they're not having any of it.
00:37:00.660
You don't have to see some people, oh, screw Meta, to heck with Facebook.
00:37:07.300
You don't have to like Zuckerberg or any of them.
00:37:09.760
But it doesn't mean they deserve to be robbed by the government and have the money given over
00:37:33.100
Well, he said, we're going to dip in more, and we will just make sure to keep pouring more
00:37:36.760
money into the media outlets to cover any money lost if Facebook and all those block the links
00:37:47.240
And yes, it could very much hurt the Western standard.
00:37:49.380
Something I'm going to put out for some self-serving advice.
00:37:54.420
Sign up for email access to your favorite media outlet, guys.
00:37:58.940
You get all sorts of, you know, emails chronically from news organizations.
00:38:03.220
Once their name got your list, you keep getting them.
00:38:05.840
But it's important because that way they can reach you with news without having to go through
00:38:12.560
And we can still get the stories to you and still share these things because we don't know
00:38:19.920
And you just might not be able to find the sites as easily.
00:38:25.200
All the social media platforms do is funnel the traffic to them.
00:38:32.100
Oh, Facebook's carrying and making money off the content.
00:38:39.800
But it's going to be a lot harder to find them.
00:38:43.260
And if we reduce traffic, we reduce the advertising revenue we can get.
00:38:47.220
That means we can't provide as good a news as we did.
00:38:55.000
And unfortunately, I think it's only going to get worse before it gets better.
00:38:58.820
We're seeing in the news now that Post Media and the company who owns the Toronto Star,
00:39:03.460
you know, too big the remaining, you know, of the few media giants left in Canada.
00:39:14.080
I imagine it'll be easier to get the government welfare checks in.
00:39:19.640
It's just a bigger version of the broken model.
00:39:35.260
I mean, loads of them out there in legacy media outlets, or they were.
00:39:39.780
The whole media, you know, platform, the way it's done is different.
00:39:44.540
And these guys are holding on to outdated, obsolete models.
00:39:47.940
And they either have to adapt and scale down and get better, or they just got to go away.
00:39:54.180
Subsidizing them, pouring tax dollars into them, or stealing money from social media giants and giving it to them.
00:40:04.720
But it also harms the smaller up-and-coming outlets like us with the Western Standard or True North or Epoch Times, Postmillennial, all those other ones.
00:40:14.020
They get hurt because there's still only so much market.
00:40:21.540
But, like I said, you know, kind of in a long, circular way, we have to make sure we fact-check our own information and get it out there.
00:40:29.800
Because when BS starts spreading, that's one of their favorite ways to make an excuse to get in there and interfere with the sharing of information online.
00:40:39.540
So when you see something and you find out that it's baloney going around, call it out.
00:40:47.460
Because, you know, it just gives them more reason to intervene.
00:40:52.680
Because they won't intervene for the sake of your truth or learning.
00:41:00.040
Speaking of self-serving jerks, let's look at the Suzuki Foundation.
00:41:03.180
They're taking to the airwaves, it says, to tell the public that the liquefied natural gas industry is bad.
00:41:13.100
We need to report and counter the baloney that comes out of nutcases like David Suzuki and his gross foundation.
00:41:20.040
You know, the world is burning a lot of fuel, high emission fuel.
00:41:24.680
Most of the world is burning it, whether it's wood or coal or animal dung.
00:41:29.780
A lot of the developing world, they're using whatever they have to.
00:41:33.720
Liquified natural gas is one of the best developments to help mitigate and reduce the emissions.
00:41:39.160
No, it doesn't eliminate them, but it reduces them.
00:41:47.040
But we've got lunatics like the Suzuki Foundations and lunatics like Justin Trudeau who are saying there's no market for liquid natural gas,
00:41:54.780
even though we've got countries asking, begging almost, for the export of things like liquid natural gas.
00:42:02.480
The demand is there, but we're not allowing ourselves to fill it.
00:42:07.080
The United States is making a great deal of money exporting liquid natural gas to places like Germany.
00:42:13.520
Canada, on the other hand, has spent decades, still hasn't got a single drop of LNG off the coast yet.
00:42:21.560
Eventually, it looks like the Kitimat project might come into operation, but I'm at a point where I'll believe it when I see it.
00:42:28.440
And in the meantime, while billions are being invested, while years of fighting over the coastal gas link pipeline have gone on,
00:42:36.160
and it's getting close to completion where they can finally get a return on this, where some money will come back,
00:42:41.700
where you can sell some product or you can invest it back into your country.
00:42:45.660
Clowns like the David Suzuki Foundation are saying we should shut down liquid natural gas.
00:42:50.340
These extremists, and they are extremists, want us to economically kick ourselves in the balls,
00:43:01.100
So again, getting self-serving, as I like to do, that's why independent media is important,
00:43:12.480
Or guys like Trudeau will hide behind extremists like David Suzuki,
00:43:16.660
and we will shut down viable energy alternatives, and it's harming the entire world.
00:43:34.060
As Anita Salisbury, you know, a commenter saying, yeah, told Germany, you know,
00:43:39.140
Trudeau told Germany there was no business, and then he gives no business for LNG,
00:43:43.520
and he gives 13 billion tax dollars to a Volkswagen plant for batteries.
00:43:51.340
If it was financially viable, you don't need to give them that.
00:44:00.940
And as long as they can control information, we're in a lot of trouble, guys.
00:44:06.300
So we've got to stand up for ourselves, make sure our information is accurate,
00:44:10.680
and, yes, support your independent media outlets, guys.
00:44:16.200
You know, Toronto Star and Post Media are looking to merge.
00:44:19.700
Just think of the giant, ugly, evil empire of media that'll become for a short time until they go broke, too.
00:44:24.180
But they're going to pull a lot of subsidies and a lot of influence both ways from the government to that media organization, the Toronto Star.
00:44:35.960
And you want that to dominate the media landscape even more than it already does?
00:44:43.320
So, I mean, we need to make sure we have the alternatives out there, guys, because if we put it all into one basket with these sorts of media outlets like that, we're all going to be in trouble.
00:44:53.920
Well, let's get a report on the agricultural front from Jim Bousicum of Marketplace Commodities and see what's happening out there.
00:45:13.760
So I'll start with StatsCan acreage estimates came out this morning.
00:45:19.040
StatsCan collects these estimates going back into roughly the start of April.
00:45:24.940
So there can be some variants if farmers do change their seeding plans.
00:45:29.200
But, you know, really the short of it is on acreage estimates, if you look at the changes year over year, is that the crops that over the last year were really high in price.
00:45:43.300
So if you take Durham wheat, spring wheat, all wheat classes, barley, those acres are up roughly 20% on all wheat, up around 4% on barley.
00:45:54.960
And then some things that may be good prices, but not great prices, but not great prices the last year.
00:46:00.840
Pulse crops such as lentils and peas, relatively flat, not bad pricing, but not as good as maybe what some of the other commodities are.
00:46:11.220
Those acreages are down somewhere in 15% to 20% range.
00:46:15.420
Oats, also a big change year over year, down 35%.
00:46:20.460
And then fun fact, I bet most people listening here don't know it, but farmers actually grow a lot of canary seed of all things.
00:46:28.880
There's roughly 300,000 acres of canary seed on the prairies.
00:46:32.540
And it's not a major commodity by any means, but I thought just fun fact to throw it out there.
00:46:41.220
So, as far as commodities go for the rest, we're still right in the middle of a weather market.
00:46:53.940
We're seeing a lot of price range on a week-to-week basis on whether it rains or doesn't rain.
00:46:59.800
We've seen good parts of Western Canada get rains, howbeit there's still dry areas going along the eastern side, western side of Saskatchewan,
00:47:12.140
And so we've got a few more hoops to go through before we have another crop in the bin.
00:47:20.080
We did, I mean, it was a couple weeks ago when we spoke, and things were looking very, very bleak for the rain, though.
00:47:25.040
And we did, as you said, get some at least in the western end of Alberta.
00:47:27.800
Was it too late, or did it make a difference, at least for some?
00:47:32.600
It, it, there's certainly some individuals and some areas that the rain came somewhat too late.
00:47:41.040
It takes away the optimal production, but you can still come out with an average production in western Canada.
00:47:50.680
There are areas, in Alberta especially, that are basically close to zero production right now.
00:47:56.900
Likewise, there's some really, really good areas.
00:48:00.340
And I know this is an Alberta show, but down in Montana, they have bumper crops coming up.
00:48:07.420
Montana is only 100 kilometers away from Lethbridge, so a lot of those grains, if they're feed quality, they can work their way up into Alberta.
00:48:15.900
Well, it's the luck of the draw year by year, I guess.
00:48:22.120
So, all right, well, thanks for the updates, Jim, and, well, let's keep hoping things stay decently strong, and we'll check in with you again soon.
00:48:33.840
So, that was Jim Buzicum of Marketplace Commodities.
00:48:36.920
Yeah, that whole agricultural market, like I said, Paradox, he's saying that the bird seed, I didn't know that.
00:48:41.940
I saw that in the list on the image, you know, canary seed.
00:48:45.240
I thought maybe it was a term for some sort of food crop, you know, and they call it that or something.
00:48:51.040
I mean, somebody has got to grow somewhere, right?
00:48:53.800
So, why not diversify your crops, grow something a little different out there.
00:48:58.140
And, yeah, it's small relative to the others, but when you're talking 300,000 acres, it's still a sizable chunk of land out there.
00:49:08.540
There, see, we've got our little educational parts of this show.
00:49:11.300
It's not just me rambling and twisting your ear with my anger and rage on things, though.
00:49:21.580
Yeah, an interesting story with Canada today approaching.
00:49:25.500
The citizenship, you know, so we put out a thing, the citizenship survey.
00:49:28.320
If you want to become a citizen of Canada, you have to answer a bunch of questions about, you know, the country.
00:49:33.440
And we were asking them around the newsroom a little bit.
00:49:36.220
And because this survey found 1,500 Canadians that only 23% would actually pass the citizenship test.
00:49:42.940
These are people already here based on answers to 10 randomly selected questions.
00:49:46.440
And he was asking those questions that I couldn't get them either.
00:49:49.180
I'd fail the citizenship test, I think, if I had to go through it.
00:49:52.840
You know, it's important to have these tests, obviously.
00:49:55.640
And I suspect committed new Canadians are going to read, you know, and study and be very careful.
00:50:02.660
But the homegrown Canadians, I guess we're lapsing or lagging on our own history.
00:50:07.300
We aren't as well educated on the nation as the new Canadians coming in are.
00:50:13.740
So that's a bit of a, I don't know, I can speak to our education or I can speak to our attitudes or speak to a number of things.
00:50:18.720
An interesting thing to come out before Canada, you know, to find that most of us, I mean, at least I'm not alone.
00:50:22.720
The majority of us wouldn't pass that darn test.
00:50:26.540
Another interesting thing, just seeing it unfold, I'll finish up with two.
00:50:30.320
I'm really hoping, you know, and I can do, I probably will do whole shows on it down the road.
00:50:38.820
I'm really hoping that Premier Smith maintains the courage to get in there and reform it and do some stuff and shake that Alberta Health Services tree.
00:50:51.120
Now, whether she was fairly traded or not fairly, I don't know.
00:50:53.520
She was the person who was, you know, the head of, you know, the public health officer while the pandemic hit.
00:51:00.560
None of them, that's not a good position to be in, I think, for anybody at that point.
00:51:04.460
I'm sure through a lot of it, she wishes she was just back in her office in a cubbyhole somewhere in the legislative buildings
00:51:10.980
and tracking, you know, venereal disease outbreaks at high school dances rather than dealing with COVID.
00:51:15.720
But she got caught in the middle of it and rightly or wrongly, whatever, she got fired eventually once Smith came in.
00:51:24.180
Partly due to some of the actions Hinshaw did or I think partly was just just followed from her doing what she was told to do by the county government.
00:51:37.160
And then they said, no, no, no, no, that was fake.
00:51:42.460
And she got unhired is the way they're putting it because I think she never quite got started.
00:51:45.980
And now a bunch of doctors are having a temper tantrum over it.
00:51:49.840
Talk about politics in our health care provision, guys.
00:51:52.800
You know, the amount of noise and who hired her and how this is going on is just showing what a bureaucratic nightmare the health care administration and system is.
00:52:14.880
Every opposition party claims that their province is the worst on the planet.
00:52:18.240
Well, no, actually, if you go across the country, every province has the same problem going on.
00:52:25.720
None of them have the courage to take on their own bureaucrats and unions.
00:52:29.100
I'm hoping Daniel Smith will be the first one to have the courage to take that on.
00:52:31.840
So, yeah, it looks like a bit of a debacle with this in Henshaw, out Henshaw, and 100 doctors whining.
00:52:37.060
And, you know, it's the same 100 doctors who complain.
00:52:44.300
It's just the same old stuff and the legacy media feeding that crap.
00:52:47.840
But either way, a little bit of chaos, hopefully, is an indication.
00:52:53.960
Because they're going to fight Smith tooth and nail.
00:52:58.020
And so, like I've said in the past, she's got to stand strong.
00:53:08.520
I will let you all go back to your summer days.
00:53:11.220
So, thank you very much for joining us today, guys.
00:53:16.260
More ranting, more news, and all that good stuff next week at this time.
00:53:20.620
Here's what commodity prices are doing in Lethbridge today.
00:53:31.660
And corn is down $15 at $4.03 per metric tonne.
00:53:34.900
In the milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures dropped $0.27 to $8.06 per bushel,
00:53:40.860
with local hard rate spring bid for July movement at $10.50 per bushel.
00:53:45.600
Looking at canola, nearby futures fell $29.40 at $7.09.90 per tonne,
00:53:51.820
with delivered rise for July movement at $16.32 per bushel.
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In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading at $0.33.5 per pound,
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and yellow peas are steady at $11.25 per bushel.
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And in the cattle markets, August live cattle are higher $0.27.5 at $1.79.56 per hundredweight.
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