Andy Crooks joins Cory on the show to talk about bike lanes in Alberta and why they need to be stopped. Plus, Cory rants about the Calgary Stampede and why he thinks Alberta should ban bike lanes.
00:00:31.560As you can probably tell, it's cowboy cosplay season, so once a year when I throw on a hat and a western shirt and pretend to be something akin to a cowboy.
00:00:40.880I grew up in Banff. I'm a mountain boy at best, but I do live rural and I have livestock, even though they are, you know, bees.
00:00:47.060But, oh well, I think I dress up better than some of the folks you see down on the grounds anyways, but I know I'm not that much of a convincing cowboy.
00:00:53.580But it's a fun time in the city of Calgary. I mean, the whole city gets going on it.
00:00:56.680We're lucky to have such an internationally renowned annual festival like that that's so distinct from so many others,
00:01:03.140even though the downtown hipsters and municipal politicians like decrying it and trying to move us away from that image.
00:01:10.040Most people enjoy it and have a heck of a time.
00:01:12.080The show is live. Use that comment scroll. Good to see you there.
00:01:15.160Waniska and E Sharp just keep things civil with each other.
00:01:18.620I got a good one coming up. I got Andy Crooks coming on.
00:01:20.780He's going to be in studio in a little bit.
00:01:22.320And you might remember him. He was one of the signatories to the Alberta Agenda.
00:01:28.080Him, along with Stephen Harper and some others, signed that letter trying to get Ralph Klein to bring in some provincial changes and fight Ottawa.
00:04:32.160It's ours. And I know that's what nobody ever likes to hear.
00:04:35.100The reason city planners are overrun with zealots is because the mayor's chair and the seats of city council have been dominated by zealots as well.
00:04:41.560Hiring has reflected the ideology of the mayor and council, and now the bureaucracy is outright infested.
00:06:51.120Yeah. Yeah, good choice. So that story speaks for itself.
00:06:55.680In extremely disturbing news, up in Crossfield, a teacher has been charged with 16 sex offenses against eight separate students.
00:07:06.620So we'll be watching to see how that all unfolds. 47-year-old mathematics teacher.
00:07:12.140Hmm. So he'll need at least a 50-year sentence to be realistic and keep this from happening, but he'll probably be out for a few weeks, I imagine.
00:07:19.760Yeah, that's a good point. So we'll be following that closely to see if this teacher actually gets the consequences that he deserves for this abhorrent behavior.
00:07:29.420So that was the Airdrie RCMP that made those arrests.
00:07:34.340Now, speaking of the RCMP, an RCMP officer went on CBC last night and documented the rise in extremism.
00:07:44.200And she flagged extremist behavior can sometimes be based on traditional value, she said.
00:07:51.780So she warned, if your family and friends start, maybe one day they support, you know, quote, gender rights, and now they are going to more, quote, traditional family values, then watch out, because they may be extremists.
00:08:09.220So, yeah, it just stands to reason, you know, we're wondering why we want a provincial police force.
00:08:46.480So, in Calgary on June 30th, the city, based on a vote, mind you, implemented the fluoride process into the public water supply.
00:08:57.400So, there's a group of activists gathered down at the courthouse steps today for a protest, where at two o'clock there will be an injunction against the fluoride being added to the water.
00:09:09.020So, our reporter, Leah Mushett, is heading down there.
00:09:36.000And it's also interesting that as the U.S. in several states are now making moves to ban fluoride in the water, Calgary is now going ahead to implement it.
00:09:46.420So, apparently this new, sorry, apparently this group of activists has new evidence that is actually harmful.
00:09:54.420And I think that it's a proportionate warming.
00:09:57.840So, if there's a certain amount of fluoride in the water, then that's going to have potentially dangerous effects.
00:10:07.140Whereas a very small trace amount, maybe not so much, but it's still like an ongoing discussion.
00:10:37.840So, someone's doing something down at City Hall.
00:10:40.180So, we'll see if this injunction, if there's anything to it.
00:10:43.100And finally, the Alberta Next panel, which is a panel launched by Smith's government to gauge Albertans' interests and concerns in what might need to go on that referendum ballot that we're seeing next year.
00:11:00.280The main question, of course, is going to be a question of independence.
00:11:03.280However, they're looking at adding more questions to the ballot, which in itself is, I've heard, a bit of a controversial issue for some people.
00:11:12.360Some people believe that on that ballot should just be the one question.
00:11:15.500So, today, the Alberta Next panel released a video suggesting that perhaps on the referendum there should be a question about how willing people are to work with other provinces for Alberta to be a leader in making amendments to Canada's constitution.
00:11:33.620And that would, at the end of the day, give more power to provinces.
00:11:36.460It would eliminate or at least really substantially minimize the overreach that Ottawa has in provinces.
00:11:45.120So, when it comes to provincial jurisdictions like health care and also federal judges, that it should be more fairly represented by all the provinces, especially Western provinces.
00:12:43.740Yes, very prolifically writing on many of those stories that matter.
00:12:47.860And this is why I've got to remind you of the reason we can pay such great folks as Jen and others to come in here and do this for us is subscribers.
00:12:55.380So, guys, it's $9.99 a month, $100 for a year.
00:13:37.420He's been that interesting fellow with the hair and the rest, a very libertarian, taking over Argentina.
00:13:41.540But now he's changed their firearms policy.
00:13:44.020And he's letting citizens buy and possess semi-automatic firearms, which shows a government confident, I guess, in having the faith of citizens.
00:13:50.540And he's also lowered the minimum age for firearm ownership from 21 to 18.
00:13:56.600So that rescinds a 1995 prohibition on pretty much everything out there.
00:14:00.620And it's just going to be interesting.
00:14:03.580You know, I'd like to see the real numbers on it.
00:15:17.340And, you know, just a sense of deja vu I've been feeling lately.
00:15:22.000I remember way back, actually, when Alberta Report did a big photo shoot and they had yourself and the other signatories of the Alberta agenda back in 2001.
00:15:32.380I think it was the next page over they had me and I was leading the Alberta Independence Party at that time as this deer in the headlights 29-year-old didn't know what the hell I was doing.
00:15:39.820And, you know, the issues were the same.
00:15:44.560A lot of the proposed solutions are similar, but we just can't seem to get things over the finish line.
00:15:50.020Like, do you think we're closer now to getting some of those things into place?
00:15:54.200Yeah, that's a good way of framing it.
00:15:57.380You know, the problems are the same and the solutions are the same.
00:16:10.780Back in the day when we wrote the firewall letter, we actually had meetings with Ralph Klein and his advisors and some of the ministers.
00:16:18.040And they were quite clear that the polling at the time did not support the ideas like the Alberta pension or a no-brainer that I thought of, which was the Alberta police presence.
00:16:32.500Ideas that seemed to make a lot of sense to me were not resonating in the public agenda.
00:16:38.780And Ralph said, listen, I think they're good ideas, but there's no support for them.
00:16:44.000And Ralph's leadership style was very much, I don't know, he often quoted himself as saying how he leads is to look for a parade, run like hell to get out in front of it, and then keep checking over his shoulder to make sure the parade is still behind him.
00:17:00.920It's a lot easier than trying to start a new one, that's for sure.
00:19:19.140Well, as you described it, one of those waves seems to be kind of coming.
00:19:23.040And Premier Smith has been putting herself in front of it to a degree anyways and really wearing the issue, I guess, of regionalism or standing up to Ottawa or trying to at least isolate us a little bit policy-wise from the rest of the country.
00:19:35.260Yeah, I don't like the words isolation.
00:20:31.900So I think a lot with the independence-minded people, and I think it's a growing number, but we're a long ways from a 50% vote, I believe, in Alberta.
00:20:40.820But a lot of people say the same sort of thing.
00:21:32.900In the meantime, I want to talk about how we can be better Albertans and better Canadians and build and thrive in our own environment.
00:21:42.360That includes having our own police force, collecting our own taxes, managing our own pension money.
00:21:49.140So those are the things we could do as a province without constitutional change.
00:21:52.820And the new Alberta Next panel that Premier Smith has launched recently released.
00:21:58.360I think now they're exploring a bunch of possible constitutional initiatives and kind of inviting other provinces to get together to try and meet constitutional change.
00:22:07.500But our formula in Canada is pretty darn difficult to make significant.
00:22:14.300These are changes that we can make on our own.
00:22:16.840We don't need the rest of Canada to make them.
00:22:20.000And, you know, this next panel that Danielle is moving forward with, it's reminiscent of Jason's initiative, which is reminiscent of something Ralph Klein did when Ralph took office.
00:22:32.540That's what I'm meaning with this deja vu.
00:23:45.720Yeah, so something that's a little different this time is that Premier Smith seems to really like the referenda idea, the notion of it, putting a number of questions perhaps on a referendum.
00:23:55.620And again, Premier Kenney did that as well on the equalization, but it really was just a poll of Albertans.
00:26:07.780Ottawa edges its way into the provincial agendas using its taxing powers and ability to distribute money amongst the provinces.
00:26:18.180And the provincial politicians, God love their souls, but they like this because they don't have to stand the heat of saying to the citizens, this is going to cost you and this is how much.
00:26:30.280And here's why they can hide that off to Ottawa.
00:26:34.000And then Ottawa says, well, we just have to collect for everybody, including you.
00:26:41.160And as we get entangled, though, we could end up with worse policies.
00:26:44.060I mean, I see the appeal for some provincial politicians, but let's say, for example, $10 daycare way outside of the federal realm.
00:26:51.620But the provincial people look like bad guys if you try to say no to it, because then you're saying, oh, you want the single mom to starve and you don't.
00:26:59.540And they're kind of on the hook if they don't support the Ottawa initiative, they look bad.
00:27:03.980If they do support it, though, they're going quite contrary to any policy initiative.
00:27:07.020So we end up with this creeping federalism that is now it's it's it's poisoned even at the highest levels of judicial thinking in Canada.
00:27:16.580The Como case in New Brunswick, where we challenged the right of New Brunswick to prohibit the importation of beer into Quebec beer in particular into New Brunswick.
00:27:28.960And it was the first time in decades that the court had ever considered Section 92 of the Constitution, where it says there shall be no impediment to trade between provinces.
00:27:42.340First time that they considered this in decades.
00:27:47.720But it came up and the court kind of wobbled and waffled and said, oh, and what they were.
00:27:53.220You can see reading between the lines, they were really afraid of dismantling this complex structure that has evolved over the last 50 or 60 years.
00:28:03.020Isn't that when they kind of acknowledged that, yes, this is contrary to the Constitution and the spirit of it for that free trade, but they felt it was a justifiable violation because they never did rule in his favor.
00:28:15.340No, no, they didn't say it's a justifiable interesting use of the word.
00:28:20.620They just weren't prepared to dismantle the whole thing.
00:28:24.120If your judges at that level won't do it, who's going to?
00:28:28.540Now, coincidentally, that case next came up about two months later in an Alberta case against about beer, and the court used the reasoning that they arrived at for Como to arrive at the right result in the Alberta case.
00:28:43.060So these things tend to work out, but your point is, I think, we do have to restore Canada to the balance of federal, provincial powers and responsibilities that our founders had in mind and that, quite frankly, I want to see restored.
00:29:00.680Yeah, well, and that's another tougher one when we're talking about inter-provincial infrastructure.
00:29:05.800That's actually federal jurisdiction in a sense, or at least they have the ability to approve or not approve.
00:29:12.180As well, a province should be able to, we can't stop a highway or a railroad from crossing, but they give an authority to provinces to hinder and stop pipelines.
00:29:19.660Well, except we're a federation again, and part of the price of being a federation is you surrender some of these decisions.
00:29:28.580So you're right, we couldn't stop the Trans-Canada Highway from going through Alberta.
00:29:33.180The government of Canada says this is a national project of national interest, we want it.
00:29:38.620In the same way that they would say the pipeline to the East Coast to ship oil and gas is in the national interest, it's a national project, we want it.
00:29:48.660So just as Alberta can't stop the Trans-Canada Highway from going across Alberta, Quebec should not be able to stop a national pipeline from going across Quebec.
00:30:01.160Because the term should not, but realistically.
00:30:03.340That's part of the deal of being in a confederation.
00:30:06.740And if you're not prepared to accept that part of the deal, then what the hell are you doing in the confederation?
00:30:35.120But he says, well, I mean, I mean, it seems to be coming to a head though.
00:30:52.220I mean, I, I haven't seen such a, an active provincial government at least pushing back and Scott Moe has been pretty, uh, interestingly, we have partners.
00:31:08.900Now we have partners, uh, as, as, as we, uh, trudge our road towards happy destiny.
00:31:37.600Well, I appreciate you coming in to talk about it.
00:31:40.080Like I said, it just seems to be kind of rehashing a lot of stuff, but maybe we can bring the experience from 20 some years ago and apply it today and maybe come to more productive conclusions than we did last time.
00:31:58.260And, uh, hopefully you can talk again soon.
00:31:59.760Where, where can people find your work by the way, with the constitution, uh, committee and such?
00:32:02.940Well, actually the, uh, ccf, uh, dot org is the, uh, website, uh, Google Canadian Constitution Foundation and Google Simon House Residence Society.
00:32:14.580And I should add, I'm speaking for myself, not any of these organizations.
00:32:35.040So again, guys, yes, uh, Andy Crooks and, uh, well, you know, the issues just keep, uh, coming up, but I mean, if we can learn from our past efforts, maybe we can come to a different outcome.
00:32:46.600But, uh, the, the frustration of feeling like we're just going in circles sometimes can be, uh, overwhelming.
00:32:52.000And then again, the, the independence, I mean, as I said, you can't take it off the table.
00:32:56.880You've got to have something in the background to say, well, look, if this isn't going to work,
00:33:21.780I've been doing so many speaking events.
00:33:22.900As I said earlier, I, I think the appetite's stronger than I've ever seen, but a whole lot of people still want to try everything else first.
00:33:33.120That's perhaps a little bit of what I see happening with, with Premier Smith is she's throwing it all out there.
00:33:48.540And, uh, well, once those fail or if they fail, well, there's also, we've given citizens initiatives.
00:33:54.420So, uh, perhaps we can, we're going to have a referendum on independence.
00:33:58.440And that's what I think some people need to think about if they're opposing the initiatives coming from the provincial government on these things, then, well, if, if you stop the province from doing any of these reforms or getting things done, more and more people are going to be saying, well, that's it.
00:34:48.380A lot of the things that Premier Smith is pushing now are basically the, the, the parts of the Alberta agenda, though we're seeing more will to actually do them.
00:34:56.560She's, she's just saying we're going to do it anyways.
00:34:58.320Um, just going through the comments, guys, uh, let's see, uh, Cyril Arnold saying, unfortunately, we don't have time to hold a referendum on questions that a poll will answer when 43% of 18 to 34 year olds want to leave Canada for economic reasons.
00:36:07.480And ironically, it's a lot of the older people who were kind of opposing independence.
00:36:10.440But as they learn and realize that it's a false security clinging to the federation, if you get the younger demographic and the older demographic, both supporting independence, we're going to see something different happening.
00:38:24.000You know, there are groups that are working really hard, and those guys are doing a good job on it.
00:38:27.360If you're looking at independence and you want to see details, you want to see the costs of government and what would happen in an independent environment,
00:38:33.240they have broken it down because a lot of people opposing things are very deep into the whataboutism.
00:38:38.620Well, a lot of those questions are answered on their site.
00:42:11.920We're talking something like the Russian gulags.
00:42:13.460So, well, as long as we have due process and everything.
00:42:16.940With some of our long-term prisoners, I think we could pretty, you sit in a prison in the middle of a bunch of muskeg and they don't have clothing to go far.
00:42:33.660And, you know, I don't mind spending a lot of money on rehabilitation on first offenders.
00:42:40.760I really, you know, when a person is just starting down the bad road, perhaps there's a chance that you can knock them back.
00:42:46.800Because it's best for everybody, right?
00:42:47.960If you could rehabilitate a prisoner, even if it's a bit of a serious crime, though, they should be in for a while.
00:42:52.760I'm not talking, you know, multiple murders or something.
00:42:54.540But if you could actually rehabilitate a person, get them out, and then they end up working, contributing, live a decent life, hey, we all win.
00:43:02.200And if that takes some investment in education and therapy in a less punitive environment and a more rehabilitational environment, yeah, it's worth trying to spend some money on.
00:43:14.800But we've got a lot that we know we can't fix.
00:43:18.000When they're on their 10th, 50th, 100th offense, or as Envy, one of the commenters say, you know, with Paul Bernardo, you know, it's sickening, he's in a medium security.
00:43:25.440Well, the ones we know we're never going to let out, we don't have to spend a lot of money on them, guys.
00:43:30.100We can stick them somewhere isolated with a heavy, heavy security.