Western Standard - August 08, 2026


CORY MORGAN SHOW： Why $100 cheques and grocery ‘bonuses’ are just expensive distractions


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

181.78

Word count

8,403

Sentence count

386

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good day, welcome to the Cory Morgan Show.
00:00:29.400 another nutty week of politics news ranting stuff to report on and all that good stuff this show's
00:00:36.680 live as you can see so use that comment scroll i see cb fixes all already in there talking about
00:00:42.680 yeah what i'm gonna rant about in a few moments you know i like seeing that interaction down there
00:00:47.000 in the comment scroll reminds me there's people on the other end watching besides just my mom
00:00:51.480 and uh sometimes we get some good debates and things on the go while we're out of there just
00:00:56.600 remember to remain civil while you're at it if you can save the vitriol for x that's what we're
00:01:03.480 there for all right uh well i'll get right into it because yeah i'm gonna talk about big government
00:01:09.720 and just when they're talking and kissing our butts with things i mean nothing says we feel
00:01:15.480 your pain quite like a politician announcing a one-time check that evaporates on your first
00:01:20.040 trip to the store or a gas station ottawa's latest attempt to paper over soaring food prices with a
00:01:26.040 targeted top-up, had limited uptake, negligible lasting relief, and made zero dent in the
00:01:33.200 underlying inflation that made the bonus necessary in the first place. Black's Lock's reporter
00:01:38.360 article reported that federal focus groups didn't see the value in the latest federal inflation
00:01:43.220 fighting grocery bonus program. There's a report called the Continuous Qualitative Data Collection
00:01:49.860 of Canadian Views, yes speaking of bureaucracy I'll get to that, prepared for the Privy Council,
00:01:55.100 found that citizens weren't that enamored with the rebates.
00:01:58.480 Researchers wrote, 0.99
00:01:59.300 In other words, Canadians aren't as dumb as the federal government hoped they'd be. 0.97
00:02:16.420 Citizens might welcome any funds they can get to offset the rising cost of living, 0.97
00:02:19.720 but they do understand that the handouts are only a band-aid rather than a solution for inflation.
00:02:25.500 Alberta's version is equally theatrical. Daniel Smith's Danny Bucks, or Danny Dollars,
00:02:31.260 officially the Alberta Energy Rebate, handed eligible residents a grand total of $100 each
00:02:37.260 this summer. It's framed as relief from high energy costs after oil prices spiked
00:02:42.220 and replacing a temporary fuel tax pause. Critics correctly noted it barely covers a couple of
00:02:48.380 fill-ups or a modest grocery run for a family, yet the announcement generated the usual photo ops
00:02:53.500 and self-congratulation. Many Albertans took the money but were nonplussed. Actually, a lot donated
00:02:59.540 it to my TPA as a self-serving plug. Those are not isolated stunts. The only concept of trying
00:03:05.520 to bribe citizens with their own money is hardly new. Ralph Klein offered $400 handout to Albertans
00:03:11.120 when his political fortunes were sinking some 20-some years ago, and a myriad of other governments
00:03:15.660 have used the same tactic. Trudeau offered the 2023 federal grocery rebate. That was a one-time
00:03:20.940 payment of $4.67 for a couple with two children, and they doubled GST credit amounts for lower
00:03:26.040 income households. As the price of the consumer carbon tax began to sink in, Trudeau started
00:03:30.840 handing out rebates there too. Again, citizens certainly took them. They're not going to
00:03:34.580 martyr themselves, but they didn't lose their loathing of the tax. Carney's removal of both
00:03:39.260 the consumer carbon tax and the associated rebates was one of his most popular moves
00:03:43.300 as the prime minister. People didn't want more damn rebates. They want tax cuts. 0.97
00:03:47.800 These rebates are always sold as putting money back in your pockets,
00:03:50.480 while politicians hope citizens forget who took the money out of their pocket in the first place.
00:03:54.520 The real drivers of pocketbook pain are the cumulative weight of big government,
00:03:58.420 layer of layer regulations on businesses.
00:04:01.660 Everything from environmental permitting delays to labor rules to supply chain mandates
00:04:05.600 drive investment from the country while raising the cost for consumer goods.
00:04:10.080 Protectionist trade deals and interprovincial barriers keep competition
00:04:13.920 artificially low and prices artificially high.
00:04:16.460 I'll be talking to Mr. Shalababa about that shortly.
00:04:19.280 The simple move of dumping supply management policies on poultry and dairy products
00:04:23.640 would save Canadian families thousands, but the state won't budge.
00:04:26.900 Meanwhile, high consumer and corporate taxes leave less in the wallets of those managing to remain employed
00:04:32.100 while the federal government maintains a massive and bloated and inefficient bureaucracy.
00:04:37.260 Canada's productivity lags in the developed world,
00:04:39.300 and the GDP per capita when compared to the United States is embarrassingly low and dropping.
00:04:44.760 A $100 check or a temporary GST holiday does nothing to unwind the pressures placed on citizens by big government.
00:04:50.980 Actual relief will come from cutting regulations so businesses can operate more efficiently.
00:04:56.460 Liberalize trade for real so Canadians can access cheaper goods and lower the tax burden so people can keep more of what they earn in the first place.
00:05:04.240 Real solutions will demand something that's direly lacking in the legislatures, both provincial and federal.
00:05:10.100 They need political courage.
00:05:11.720 Governments must find the testicular fortitude to stand up to civil service unions
00:05:15.280 and senior bureaucrats protecting their little fiefdoms.
00:05:18.740 Buying love from labor unions through endless capitulation to strike threats 0.69
00:05:22.100 while passing on the costs through higher taxes won't be tenable for much longer.
00:05:26.560 Tossing a few dollars here and there to citizens to purchase electoral peace is insulting.
00:05:30.980 Yet it's been politically effective so far.
00:05:33.200 People understand the bad deal they're getting, yet can't find the will to vote for change.
00:05:36.740 In that sense, much of the electorate is no less cowardly than the politicians are.
00:05:40.020 Albertans and Canadians will keep receiving the odd hundred bucks and
00:05:43.580 wondering why the cost of living never seems to ease until the well truly does
00:05:48.960 dry up then reality will come home to roost by the way that's just what I'm
00:05:52.320 gonna piss and moan about it but this morning how's it going Dave it's going
00:05:54.960 well how are you not too bad from being grumpy well I'm always grumpy that's my
00:05:58.560 nature that's true hey how did the honey harvest go I say ads on Facebook
00:06:04.560 selling it by the gallon yes well I'm putting it in larger packages this time
00:06:08.700 because they produce so much about 142 pounds of it wow um you might have seen also i posted though
00:06:13.960 i think i screwed up i might have killed the queen in one of my hives i heard that they're very angry
00:06:17.800 at you they are and i've never had that happen before you know where the hive suddenly goes from
00:06:22.820 being pretty dust i'll laid back you know unless you're meddling with them too these guys are bad
00:06:26.760 it's been days and i i come within 30 feet of that hive and they send out the troops they're they're
00:06:30.340 in attack mode it really sucks been stung yet i only got stung a couple times during the harvest
00:06:34.960 which considering going through that it's not bad they were just on the wrists so i didn't get any
00:06:39.680 nice fish how would the queen be done if i was being too clumsy and replacing frames when i put 1.00
00:06:45.680 them in and if the queen was down there i might have because the queen's fatter and she's in 0.98
00:06:49.200 between and i may not have spotted her and squished i'm just guessing that that's what happened that
00:06:54.000 hive is so pissed off with me right now i don't even want to go into it to have a look and find
00:06:57.600 out how do they get a new queen well that's a if you want to know that story yeah they will they
00:07:03.040 realize within 24 hours it's queenless because the pheromones are gone so they'll change some existing
00:07:07.760 eggs they feed them that royal jelly and it turns them into queens they'll build queen cells larger
00:07:13.120 cells a bunch of queens will hatch they'll fight the last surviving queen it's it's a pretty brutal 0.97
00:07:19.760 on the beehive yeah then she'll go out on her mating flight and uh try to find a drone from
00:07:24.320 another hive drones are male bees whose whole mission in life is to go out in the morning hope
00:07:28.960 to get it on with a queen and come back every day otherwise they don't do any work or anything and
00:07:34.640 well if she manages to get laid and come home she will start laying eggs within a few weeks
00:07:38.960 and the hive will calm down hopefully and be in a better mood interesting the sex lives of bees
00:07:43.440 yes something new every day birds and the bees not terribly romantic actually those queens are 0.74
00:07:48.000 you know quite quite sleazy you know they'll they'll have their way with a few drones before
00:07:52.000 they come home but well anyways on with the news yes uh story kind of related to your monologue
00:07:58.160 there uh the the uh federal gas tax she uh relief that mark carney brought in at the pumps
00:08:05.360 saved ten dollar ten cents a liter uh it's scheduled to expire on labor day uh so the
00:08:12.400 conservatives had a statement today saying keep it on keep it on it's uh gas prices are too high
00:08:18.560 as it is and it's uh you know inflation so we'll see if the liberals uh listen there
00:08:25.540 I've got a couple of stories on anti-Semitism in Canada.
00:08:29.820 95% of all Jewish students in a survey across Canada said they had experienced anti-Semitism on campus
00:08:39.380 and that schools aren't doing enough.
00:08:42.560 And we've certainly seen that, you know, over the last year or so, some of those Eastern universities.
00:08:47.340 Yeah, and West Coast as well, actually, yes. 0.99
00:08:50.920 And we've got a moron in Saskatoon who threw a whole bunch of eggs at a synagogue there 0.99
00:08:57.660 and the cars in the parking lot and all that sort of stuff. 0.99
00:09:01.040 So that picture is his face is quite clear on the security cameras and everything. 1.00
00:09:05.840 So I imagine the idiot is expecting to get caught. 1.00
00:09:08.400 Well, you never know. 1.00
00:09:09.740 He's an idiot. 1.00
00:09:10.340 No, it's true. 1.00
00:09:10.860 He may say he's got away with it. 0.74
00:09:12.100 He's a criminal genius.
00:09:14.980 Got a heartwarming story on Maya.
00:09:16.960 You know, remember, she's a little girl shot in the Tumblr Ridge massacre.
00:09:22.320 I suffered catastrophic skull injuries.
00:09:25.020 It looks like they've given herself a puppy.
00:09:27.560 And the puppy's laying on her stomach in the hospital bed,
00:09:30.380 and she's actually able to move and smile and interact with the puppy.
00:09:34.380 So that's a nice story.
00:09:37.020 The Edmonton Police Snitch Line, which has got social media's attention
00:09:42.340 in the last couple of days, the NDP has come out and supported it.
00:09:46.960 I like the snitches, so that was a video from one of their MLAs, David Shepard.
00:09:53.380 And another Mountie shooting, this time in Fox Creek,
00:09:57.220 where they shot a guy after an hours-long domestic dispute.
00:10:00.760 So the happy news continues for the RCMP.
00:10:04.160 Yeah, it's a thankless job.
00:10:06.760 I mean, they do a lot of things not that great as well,
00:10:10.020 but the ground gear troops, it's not a pleasant trade.
00:10:13.160 Couldn't pay me enough money these days.
00:10:14.660 No.
00:10:15.840 All right.
00:10:16.960 no that's it that's it really yeah well i got more but that's what you got for your viewers
00:10:24.320 no you never bore the viewers well thank you very much for the update steve i see you're still on the
00:10:28.000 no shaving policy every two weeks okay forgot again this week whether it's a long weekend
00:10:33.280 ah it throws the schedule right off exactly so and you're not far behind me even though you did
00:10:39.200 looks like a shave i kind of shaved today i'm overdue for a haircut yes you are yes i wasn't
00:10:43.120 going to say no you brought it up fashion maven that i am all right well thanks for the update
00:10:48.560 steve and uh guess i'll see you on the pipeline you will see me on the pipeline right on
00:10:53.200 all right guys that is our news editor dave naylor and yes lots on the go i know i'll keep
00:10:57.200 twisting for more news stories there's more coming check it out at westernstandard.news
00:11:02.960 they're breaking they're constantly on their good news and bad news stories
00:11:07.120 and uh yes the reason we can do that is uh this is where i got a shill for money guys is because
00:11:11.760 you guys have subscribed and you've been fantastic subscriptions have been wonderful but we can always
00:11:17.120 use more it's 10 bucks a month hundred dollars for a year just like subscribing to a newspaper
00:11:21.360 in the old days except you don't have to wait for some sour paper boy to deliver to your house you
00:11:25.680 can just get it online so check it out at westernstandard.news subscription and yeah you
00:11:31.520 know just i guess you know i'm on about a lot of grumpy stuff and crabby stuff that's my nature
00:11:36.160 but that that other story we do put up it's mixed you know it's so heartbreaking whenever i see that
00:11:40.560 that poor young girl who was so terribly shot in the Tumblr Ridge shooting.
00:11:45.240 It was just so pointless, and seeing her recover is great.
00:11:50.040 You know, I saw a picture posted by her parents that she can actually, you know, smile now,
00:11:54.720 and now she's been reacting really well to a puppy.
00:11:57.580 And I just hope for the very, very best for that poor girl just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:12:02.860 So check that story out, and check out possibly supporting that family,
00:12:07.280 because they've got a long, long road and a lot of work to help that poor young lady with her rehabilitation from that shooting.
00:12:14.780 But so far, you know, she's doing as well as can be possibly hoped in such a horrific, horrific circumstance.
00:12:23.960 So, yes, I will, you know, get on to my guest.
00:12:26.840 It's been a while since we've had him here.
00:12:28.620 It's always a good conversation.
00:12:29.900 It kind of ties in.
00:12:30.740 It really was coincidence that my monologue I wrote happened to mention supply management.
00:12:34.860 but that is kind of a pet peeve of mine and has been for a long time so it's not unusual for it
00:12:38.940 to come up and uh mr sylvain charlebois who is known as the the food professor has been outspoken
00:12:45.900 and excellent on these economic issues people wondering why their cost of living is rising
00:12:50.140 but aren't necessarily looking deeply into it and he always explains it excellently so
00:12:55.100 let's uh bring sylvain in and uh have a chat how you doing good cory how are you pretty good pretty
00:13:01.420 good just uh getting through the dog days of summer now so uh yeah it's a it's a hot one in
00:13:07.260 halifax it's uh 32 degrees without the humidex so it's that's that's pretty hot for us yeah we get
00:13:13.340 that dry heat out here it's it's easier to deal with than that humidity that's for sure but i
00:13:17.660 still prefer it over all the snow and ice to be honest i'll take it while i got it listen i'm a
00:13:22.380 kind of guy too so i don't really mind all that much uh so i'm enjoying it yeah right on so i
00:13:29.340 I mean, I'll get right to it.
00:13:31.320 I do want to talk to you a little bit in the litter part of this, too.
00:13:34.380 Actually, I saw your column recently on the Australian beef,
00:13:37.200 which is really kind of fascinating, actually,
00:13:38.980 and the approach you took on how that might be benefiting local producers.
00:13:43.180 I think it kind of ties in, though.
00:13:44.480 I want to start with supply management
00:13:45.880 because that's one of the many problems with supply management is
00:13:50.460 it strangles the natural market and we all lose.
00:13:55.000 Pretty much.
00:13:55.800 I know there is a growing number of Canadians concerned about supply management, which is kind of nice, actually, because 25 years ago, I felt like I was alone.
00:14:05.920 I mean, I was the only one talking about supply management, and everyone was looking at me and saying, what's your problem?
00:14:10.660 And, well, we have a problem here.
00:14:13.900 I mean, in 1972, the architects of supply management, including Eugene Welland, the former minister of agriculture, had something in mind.
00:14:26.520 I don't think he had this in mind in particular.
00:14:31.060 And what I mean by this, I mean boards overpowering dairy farmers.
00:14:38.160 dairy farmers are very much victims here and i know a lot of people want to hate dairy farmers
00:14:42.880 but dairy farmers aren't problems the boards suppressing any debates and changing reforming
00:14:48.640 supply management and because they they are lots of dark secrets related to supply management they
00:14:56.000 just don't want to talk about it the milk dumping the subsidy issue they often say well america
00:15:03.520 subsidizes their dairy sector way more than us actually that's not very true when you look at the
00:15:08.720 wto data you clearly see that supply management distorts markets way more than subsidies provided
00:15:16.480 by the farm bill in the united states the hormone issue as well people often say my goodness the
00:15:23.040 milk in america is disgusting uh it's poison not really again if you go to the u.s you'll clearly
00:15:30.720 see that the human chain is highly protected from the use of growth hormones even though they are
00:15:35.760 allowed to be used and they're not allowed in canada the human chain is very much protected so
00:15:41.600 a quality is actually quite good i've been to the west many times and i think that butter milk and
00:15:46.800 other dairy products are of high quality as well so there's lots of myths that are being destroyed
00:15:52.560 right now as a result of seeing more and more canadians questioning the model yeah well and
00:16:00.080 And what's really brought this to the fore, as you said, you've been, you know, speaking about this for a long, long time.
00:16:05.000 Others like Martha Hall-Findley, I think, did some good work in the past on it as well.
00:16:08.520 Yeah, Martha as well, yep.
00:16:10.180 But, you know, they've always been isolated, I guess, you know, free market people speaking up, but not really grabbing the attention of people.
00:16:18.760 But something that's really bringing it to the fore right now, aside from the high cost of living, is it's really causing some trade hindrances with us.
00:16:24.960 I mean, we've got a trade war with the United States and we've had issues with Europe.
00:16:28.040 But supply management is coming up almost all the time now.
00:16:32.320 Absolutely.
00:16:33.060 So on August 19th, we know that there are new tariffs coming in at 50%.
00:16:39.320 I would say in the agri-food space, two major sectors are being impacted.
00:16:44.620 One is dairy and the other is liquor.
00:16:47.540 And, of course, President Trump is absolutely strategic in terms of aiming at specific sectors,
00:16:52.400 dairy, because of, well, tariffs, tariffs on imports.
00:16:56.060 And a lot of people often point to dairy retail prices saying that our dairy products are actually way more expensive than the U.S.
00:17:09.020 That's kind of true.
00:17:11.100 It's not always the case.
00:17:13.540 But when you look at retail prices, yes, many products are more expensive than the U.S., specifically cheese and yogurt and things like that.
00:17:22.760 But I don't think that's actually the right reason to think about changing supply management.
00:17:28.480 I think the big thing we have is the fact that we have no innovation and we're allowing foreign companies, foreign countries to come in and build and buy processors, which to me are the key chain, the key asset we need to focus on when it comes to growing the dairy sector.
00:17:50.520 China built a dairy facility in Kingston.
00:17:54.520 The Americans, Coca-Cola, actually built a facility in Peterborough for lactose-free milk.
00:18:00.700 Lactalis just bought the cheese division of Agropur.
00:18:03.960 That's a multinational coming from Europe.
00:18:06.960 So more and more, we're losing control of our own dairy sector despite supply management.
00:18:13.840 And that's a big problem.
00:18:14.800 Yeah. Well, one of the things this was supply management was supposedly sold on was it was going to protect the family farm. And the statistics don't support that whatsoever. I mean, when they brought it in, there was what, a hundred and some thousand family farms or more, I believe. And now it's what, 10 or 11,000 farms that are predominant in the industry, because it forces more of a centralized, larger model rather than diversity in the market.
00:18:39.560 Absolutely. So again, when supply management was created, it was to protect the family farm and also regionalize production. That's the important part, especially for you guys in Alberta and for us in the Atlantic.
00:18:56.840 We're supposed to produce what we need by province because quotas are managed by provinces.
00:19:02.080 But the reality now is that Quebec, for example, produces 36%, 37% of all the milk and butterfat we need in Canada with only 20% of the population,
00:19:13.140 which is why this thing is so political because, well, politicians are after votes.
00:19:20.140 votes. And so that's why when you go back to the architects of supply management, they probably
00:19:26.140 didn't see this coming at all. And now the thing is so politicized, it's impossible to get anybody
00:19:34.520 to think strategically about supply management and how to actually make it better, more competitive
00:19:39.780 so a tenant in the White House stops harassing and threatened Canada and focusing on that one
00:19:47.800 weak point we have with the supply management because it is a weak point yeah we offer i mean
00:19:53.000 you know we took it away i suspect uh that uh the president would probably find something else to
00:19:58.120 hang up upon i don't envy anybody trying to negotiate with that man on trade deals but
00:20:02.440 you're offering him low-hanging fruit with this supply management because it's sort of an
00:20:05.960 indefensible policy and it makes it easier for him to to claim uh you know bad acting on canada's
00:20:12.280 part but something they've been very effective with i mean i gotta admire it is the dairy cartels
00:20:18.040 are fantastic lobbyists i mean there's no major political party will dare touch supply management
00:20:23.720 i even had mr polyev in here on an interview and i asked him point blank what would you do about
00:20:28.920 that and he said well nothing he went along the line saying it'd be more expensive to get rid of
00:20:32.920 it than to keep it uh you can't do anything you just can't be would be costly to phase out but
00:20:40.040 it's been done before right australia new zealand uh you you can phase it out if you really but it
00:20:44.680 would be costly to him politically yes to say anything to anyone i mean one time i was in
00:20:54.840 ottawa and i'm not going to tell you who it was but i did i was asked by conservative mp
00:21:00.280 if there's one thing you could do to improve supply management and get rid of most of the
00:21:05.560 problems that we face as a nation, what would you do? And it's pretty darn easy, Corey. All you need
00:21:11.880 to do is to harmonize the allocation of quotas nationally. That's all you need to do. So instead
00:21:17.240 of allowing provinces to allocate quotas, you just nationalize the whole thing. But here's the
00:21:22.440 problem, and Capo Adyev knows that, is that capital rewards efficiency. And so quotas was basically
00:21:31.000 for west where you are and quebec would lose most of the quotas including the atlantic as well
00:21:37.960 because there's just no efficiency here in our province and so that would be an easy fix and
00:21:46.120 frankly within 10 years 15 years you would have an outstanding dairy sector uh that would be
00:21:53.000 actually able to compete against anybody europe the united states anybody because our quality
00:21:58.600 i mean we can actually sell something really good and people the world is looking for more dairy
00:22:04.040 proteins as a result of the glp1 phenomena i mean you go into a grocery store there's
00:22:10.680 protein fortified everything everyone is looking at after protein car cheese shortages are
00:22:16.600 everywhere i know there are some in alberta that's why but we're not we're not well positioned to
00:22:23.560 take advantage of some of these opportunities unfortunately because of supply management
00:22:28.600 It's unfortunate. I mean, I do hope as more attention gets shone upon the issue and milk dumping and, you know, through your efforts and other people, maybe eventually the political will change. But as I said, it's going to be a while before politicians are able to speak up on it. We can just keep trying.
00:22:42.840 I want to pivot a bit, though, like I said, with the Australian beef.
00:22:47.240 And somebody else mentioned it.
00:22:48.240 We've seen it in the news.
00:22:49.720 We're finding we can purchase Australian beef.
00:22:52.480 It shows how global the market is.
00:22:54.340 I mean, beef from that far away, and it's at a better price than what we can purchase from domestic sources.
00:22:59.900 Better price.
00:23:00.780 It's 60% less.
00:23:02.700 Yeah.
00:23:03.700 And the quality is quite fine.
00:23:06.500 but you made the case in a sense on how having that sourced into our market can actually improve
00:23:13.040 our beef production as we recover because we really haven't been producing well that's part
00:23:16.920 of why our domestic prices are so awful absolutely i i've been i've been puzzled by what's going on
00:23:23.500 right now because on the one side you know i care very much about the cattle industry the beef
00:23:28.300 industry is very strong and in canada and alberta and ranchers deserve to make good money and they
00:23:34.380 are making good money right now, which is great. There's a rally here going on. But at the same
00:23:40.120 time, I feel some compassion towards families out there wanting beef, but they can't afford it.
00:23:48.120 So they're walking away from the meat counter for a long time because they just can't afford it.
00:23:52.940 They actually see beef as a luxurious product, and it shouldn't be that way. But we know that
00:24:01.400 there's still there's going to be a correction eventually we saw that in 2014 we do expect some
00:24:07.960 more stable prices in 2027 not before but 2027 probably mid-year but in the meantime what do
00:24:15.720 you do like what do you do to help consumers and how do you actually keep consumers engaged with
00:24:21.160 the meat counter as much as possible and i think that the australian beef situation is actually
00:24:26.040 going to help canadian cattle ranchers because it will keep consumers engaged at the meat counter
00:24:34.200 for as long as it takes while we're actually seeing the entire system recover uh being built
00:24:41.240 up because the herd is very small but it's being built up right now but i suspect that by 2027
00:24:47.160 we'll actually see uh canadian consumers going back to cane because i mean let's face it i've
00:24:52.200 actually tried australian beef uh it's good but it's not the same experience as canadian beef
00:24:59.800 so my guess is at some point when prices stabilize uh canes will actually go back to canadian beef
00:25:06.600 but in the meantime i think it serves a good purpose and i do see some new zealand beef as
00:25:11.800 well out there and they're serving the same purpose yeah well and that's it i mean if you
00:25:16.680 put consumers off of a regular brand i mean it's a lot of work to bring people on to something your
00:25:21.080 families get used to a regular diet of pork and poultry even if the beef prices recover it may be
00:25:27.240 more difficult to pull them in some people don't necessarily understand somebody was asking you
00:25:31.180 know how you could project a couple of years ahead one of the commenters you know on where
00:25:34.960 things might go what beef is a little different it's such a longer turnover for a producer to
00:25:40.660 bring something you know to make your herd larger to bring your production up when the herds have
00:25:45.160 been depleted it's a multi-year process to bring them up i mean poultry and pork you can well
00:25:50.580 actually in 2014, it didn't take that long. I mean, it was the same thing. It just,
00:25:56.100 producers decided to reinvest in their hers. It's not happening this time around. Due to credit,
00:26:00.980 people are leaving, they're exiting the industry. It's been very different,
00:26:04.420 both in Canada and the US. It's been really bizarre. And a lot of analysts have been
00:26:10.020 surprised, including myself. And so, but I do think that we're going to get back to some normalcy
00:26:15.700 eventually in 2027 and and to be honest uh corey we have 40 years worth of data farmgate data and
00:26:23.940 retail data so correlating both for us it's quite easy so we can predict in advance exactly what
00:26:30.260 may happen with beef prices yeah well i mean i certainly hope they they do stabilize for the
00:26:35.620 sake of the producers and and for us as consumers i mean i i work in independent media which means
00:26:40.580 if i have beef i got to buy those cheap tough steaks and beat the heck out of them and tenderize
00:26:44.420 because I don't have the budget for a good Alberta ribeye right now. 0.60
00:26:47.880 Just don't buy Mexican beef. 1.00
00:26:50.020 Please don't do that to your family and friends
00:26:52.500 because they're going to hate you.
00:26:54.260 They're going to hate you.
00:26:56.120 I appreciate that.
00:26:57.540 Is there good clear labeling on the source of these meat products
00:27:02.080 when they come in, actually?
00:27:03.320 Not always.
00:27:06.020 So Mexican beef is always mentioned as ungraded Mexican beef.
00:27:11.960 I've seen that a lot.
00:27:13.340 but like I said, it's tougher meat. It comes from older animals. If you're thinking stew,
00:27:19.480 fine. Barbecue? No. When it comes to Australian beef, New Zealand beef,
00:27:25.760 sometimes it's mentioned. Actually, I see promotions right now for Australian beef
00:27:31.200 on flyers in Canada. So it is advertised as Australian beef. But once you go into the
00:27:38.800 grocery store, if you see good prices, chances are it's from Australia, from New Zealand.
00:27:44.840 But you're often forced to ask the butcher or the person right there.
00:27:49.880 Okay, well, that's interesting.
00:27:51.160 I mean, we've got the resources, the land, the skilled producers across the country.
00:27:58.040 So hopefully they can get back into it.
00:28:00.380 I think we kind of run out of time, but I know there's been issues on the processing
00:28:03.620 end of things too.
00:28:04.600 I mean, beef producers have long said, even when they've had larger herds, they say, well, we're not eating a bunch of profit, but the prices are going up at the table and we're trying to figure out where it is.
00:28:14.760 It's not really on the retail end.
00:28:16.040 You've covered that a lot as well, whereas the margins are narrow.
00:28:19.420 So we might have processing issues to sort out to get things to people's tables in a more cost-effective manner too.
00:28:25.440 Well, you saw that there's a class action lawsuit that was settled in the U.S. and Canada for $8 million, not much.
00:28:33.740 but I'm expecting more of these things to happen because beef prices have been incredibly high.
00:28:40.640 And don't forget, Corey, the beef situation has impacted chicken prices and pork prices
00:28:47.400 because demand is shifting.
00:28:49.080 So people are pivoting towards the other components of the meat trifecta.
00:28:53.900 So chicken and pork are also more expensive as a result of what's going on with beef.
00:28:59.240 So it's a big problem for everyone.
00:29:01.100 And so let's hope that things stabilize as quickly as possible.
00:29:04.840 Yeah, well, straight out supply and demand.
00:29:06.740 It always comes down to that in the end.
00:29:08.780 I really appreciate you lending common sense to these issues and exposing them when not enough people are speaking about them.
00:29:14.640 So before I let you go, where can people find where you've been writing?
00:29:17.880 I see you were, it was the Toronto Sun with that recent piece, I believe.
00:29:20.900 And you're quite prolific all over out there.
00:29:23.520 Where can people see your stuff?
00:29:24.920 Yeah, I have a sub stack and, of course, Post Media as a column.
00:29:29.740 I have a column with PostMedia.
00:29:31.740 I have a column with Le Zaffaire in French, if you're interested, a weekly column.
00:29:36.320 And, of course, I have my podcast called The Food Professor.
00:29:40.140 But we're on pause right now.
00:29:42.500 So we're in the middle of the summer.
00:29:44.080 So we're just releasing interviews we've done with different CEOs from all over the world talking about the future of food.
00:29:51.760 And our first episode for season number seven will be August 27th.
00:29:56.840 Excellent.
00:29:57.280 Well, I'm looking forward to it.
00:29:58.880 thank you for taking some time to talk to us today uh such an important issue and people that
00:30:04.000 don't necessarily drill down farther to see why that uh sticker shock is hitting them in the
00:30:08.880 grocery store and uh maybe with more knowledge of it we can prod our politicians to improve the
00:30:15.040 state of affairs down the road all right take care cory thank you enjoy your summer thanks
00:30:21.520 all right guys so yes that was dr sylvia charlebois and also known as the food professor and
00:30:25.920 And, you know, it isn't discussed enough.
00:30:28.760 We go on about the high costs, we go on about the prices,
00:30:31.640 but we don't drill down enough to the root of where they're at.
00:30:36.560 And we're such a massive country with such a large agricultural sector
00:30:42.460 that we shouldn't be suffering the price things that we have.
00:30:47.800 But I mean, I see, for example, a comment to Mark Jordan saying,
00:30:50.300 food should never be profit-driven.
00:30:52.760 Well, actually, it should always be profit-driven.
00:30:55.920 if we want to see non-profit driven food look to the soviet union and how well that was i had the
00:31:01.440 opportunity to go there at the end of the 80s nobody was starving but i tell you what grocery
00:31:06.100 stores are pretty bland your supply your amount of food there you know the selection was low the
00:31:12.500 quality was terrible you need competition you need people to to innovate and work to say how can i get
00:31:20.760 quality food to the consumers at a better price so I can beat my competitors. And that's how we
00:31:27.580 end up with a variety of food and at a reasonable price. The problems we're having is the market
00:31:36.300 being messed with. Nobody can mess up a market better than the government. Mark's saying I
00:31:42.340 missed the point. I guess I must have. But either way, there should be a profit in it.
00:31:46.200 And there's part of the problem when we get the left approach to it, say, at the retail level.
00:31:52.240 That discussion's been going on a lot.
00:31:54.220 And it's been studied, and it's been pounded on, and it's been checked, and it's been surveyed.
00:31:59.360 The margins at the grocery level are narrow.
00:32:02.280 We're talking 3%, 4%.
00:32:04.000 They make billions, yes, but that's because they're selling 10s, 20s, 30s of billions of dollars.
00:32:10.760 The margin is what matters.
00:32:12.740 And they are highly competitive.
00:32:14.020 There's only a few big ones, Loblaws and a few others.
00:32:17.040 That's, you know, it'd be nice if we had more out there competing a bit more.
00:32:21.800 But even then, those few heavyweights, they're each trying to own that market on each other.
00:32:27.220 And they're keeping those prices typically reasonably low.
00:32:30.560 I know people keep pointing at a bread price fixing thing from years ago.
00:32:34.080 Well, that was, yeah, they did and they got caught and there were some fines and there were some payouts on it.
00:32:41.600 Mark saying, now I hijacked your comment.
00:32:43.620 Well, Mark, I can only cover so much on the comment section, but I'm going to go on with
00:32:47.800 what I feel on it. Paradoxes saying there should always be profit in everything. Incentives. Humans
00:32:52.660 don't work without them. And that's the truth of it. That's why socialism inevitably fails.
00:32:58.360 But crony capitalism is a problem too. That's one of the issues that happens. That's part of
00:33:05.360 what Ruckin' Around there pointed out. Packers are making their profit at the killing plants. 1.00
00:33:10.680 And that's kind of where I was touching at the end with Mr. Charlebois, Dr. Charlebois,
00:33:16.560 is there's something going on in the meatpacking and processing.
00:33:20.920 There's not nearly enough competition there.
00:33:22.900 There's only a handful of companies.
00:33:24.600 And when you get that, it's just as bad as if you have a government monopoly.
00:33:28.280 A private monopoly, a government monopoly, or a polygopoly, it doesn't matter which.
00:33:32.620 The consumer gets screwed in the end.
00:33:34.820 That's why you must have competition.
00:33:37.300 You must.
00:33:37.720 You've got to, and you won't have competition without profit. 0.76
00:33:42.820 Some of the discussions, old bikers saying Hutterites will sell you all the meat you want.
00:33:46.800 There's options for people who want to drive out, you know, get beef if they have connections or chicken or other things from Hutterites directly or from farmers markets, things like that. 0.96
00:33:58.740 And they're nice and they can be good priced at times and things like that.
00:34:01.880 But for your average consumer, think of a person who's working nine to five, lives in the city,
00:34:06.360 perhaps a young family and limited budget, you're still going to be kind of limited to those local
00:34:11.160 stores and getting what you can. People talk about buying cattle and having it packed too.
00:34:15.800 And I've done that. We have a rancher friend, Jane and I bought, you know, quarters of beef and had
00:34:20.280 it frozen and it was very good. And it was, you know, it was good to support the local farmer,
00:34:25.960 take the middle person out of it, use a local processor for it, but it is a big process.
00:34:31.880 You've got to have a deep freeze.
00:34:33.080 You've got to have the thousands of dollars of capital on hand to be able to buy that in advance.
00:34:38.500 Not everybody has that.
00:34:39.800 A lot of it is hand to mouth.
00:34:42.200 And Canada, again, look at the farmland we have.
00:34:45.000 Look at the skilled farmers we have and cattle producers and livestock managers.
00:34:50.320 Really shouldn't be as bad.
00:34:53.480 We should have some of the most cost-effective food prices in the world.
00:35:00.680 but we don't. It's going up and up and up. And again, as starts in where I was talking about
00:35:05.920 with my opening monologue, with government treating things by band-aids, you know,
00:35:09.700 rebates and handouts. Well, that's not figuring out what the underlying problem is. And, uh,
00:35:17.120 we need to study more deeply into that. So, you know, Mr. Mr. Charlebois, uh,
00:35:23.260 it does lay those things out really well. I strongly suggest following him if you're interested
00:35:26.720 in, you know, looking at why food costs are where they're at. CB fixes all says there's
00:35:29.760 more and more local butchers popping up in the smaller towns in alberta that's good to hear
00:35:33.680 you know i i i miss butcher shops i gotta mean i only go occasionally there's a few good ones in
00:35:39.120 calgary when i want to get a good steak if we're you know the rare time we're entertaining or have
00:35:43.000 company or something and i'm doing a barbecue or something i'll usually go to a a butcher shop
00:35:49.100 rather than a grocer's uh typically you're going to get a better cut you can have a better conversation
00:35:54.920 with the person working the meat but i'm not going to get it cheaper typically uh as well it takes
00:35:59.960 some time right if you've only got so much time i want to hit one stop get all of my groceries at 0.83
00:36:03.880 the butcher's shop all i'm getting is the meat but these are good things uh old biker saying if you
00:36:09.000 find three dollar a pound meat i assure you it's bill gates fake meat or petri dish or cloned well
00:36:13.160 i don't think the clone stuff's in the market yet but i understand people have concerns
00:36:17.160 i i'm not big on market controls but one thing i think and that's part of why i mentioned
00:36:21.240 with Sylvain as well. I am a big believer in labeling though. I think it should be transparent.
00:36:27.240 Consumers should know where their food products are coming from and what's in them. That I am
00:36:32.800 for. I'm not talking about the big warning things about this and that or so on so much, but just
00:36:38.100 so people know, hey, this piece of meat here is from Mexico, or this piece over here is from
00:36:45.000 brazil or australia or where it might be so people can choose on their own similar things
00:36:52.060 with people when they're talking about supply management they say oh we got to keep that evil
00:36:55.120 american dairy out and this is something said actually the american dairy products are just
00:36:59.380 fine there's a lot of mythology about uh whether they're dangerous or not you gotta remember there's
00:37:03.500 hundreds of millions of americans down there the milk isn't harming them but if you're concerned
00:37:08.340 about it if we were actually starting to open our market which i think canada's well capable of
00:37:12.540 competing with American dairies without having all that protectionism. Just as long as people know
00:37:17.520 where it's coming from and they can make that decision. CB Fixes also says co-op still has a
00:37:25.000 butcher in store as well. If you want ground beef, go there. Yeah. And you know what? Some of the
00:37:29.220 larger stores still have really good butchers managing their meat department. It's kind of hit
00:37:33.180 and miss. You can sometimes hit a super store and get really good meat, but that's, if you get the
00:37:37.860 ability to shop around you can find it um but uh you know getting labeling well it's just as long
00:37:45.000 as we know where things are coming from and let people choose because uh darn it's pricey i i
00:37:51.380 miss steaks i miss beef i do like it but i don't get it that often i noticed uh recently for sale
00:37:58.160 in the um uh one of the larger supermarkets actually they were selling beef pork combined
00:38:05.640 for burgers because ground pork at least can cut in and keep the price a little more down
00:38:10.120 and actually it makes for a juicy burger if you got some ground pork in there as well
00:38:13.320 but uh it's uh you know the way that the market's trying to respond to people trying to buy things
00:38:19.860 because they just can't afford it even ground beef is darned expensive now well hopefully we
00:38:25.600 can solve some of that what else have we got going on while i'm going through here
00:38:28.940 if you let's talk about foreign stuff ninchi the head ninchi i don't know if you guys saw it on
00:38:37.360 the weekend um just brilliant out of him so he's put a complaint in to cease this he made a big
00:38:44.760 show of that a while back oh the canadian secret service gotta look into all this foreign
00:38:50.220 interference all that it's terrible into the independence referenda coming up oh there could
00:38:55.180 be billions coming in from Russia or China or the United States or who knows where, and
00:39:01.260 he got a letter back from CSIS. I mean, because the thing is, all of the people participating on
00:39:08.520 the independent side actually do file their expenses and everything. There's no foreign
00:39:12.400 interference coming in there, no foreign money, no foreign operators or anything. The one who's 0.68
00:39:16.280 hiding everything is Thomas Lukasik with his Forever Canadian group. Ironically, he won't
00:39:20.860 file his expenses. He could be getting his money from anywhere. But CESA sent this letter back,
00:39:26.780 which was basically just a form letter saying, you know, thank you for your input. We take it
00:39:31.280 seriously. Foreign interference is a concern. It may happen in democratic exercises. We keep an eye 0.99
00:39:37.900 on things and work with the governments to make sure it doesn't happen. We'll let you know if
00:39:41.480 anything changes. That's really all they sent him. And because it was a nothing burger, he went and
00:39:47.480 actually redacted a bunch before he posted it on X, the parts that were most embarrassing from
00:39:53.100 because he still wanted to make hay out of this letter he got from them. And people looked at it
00:39:57.100 and said, well, that's only part of the letter. What the heck did you get? And so on. Oh, he
00:40:00.420 claims I accidentally, I didn't mean to black it out. I just wanted to highlight it. And he posted
00:40:06.260 the whole thing, which showed that it's a nothing burger. It's nothing. This, there was nothing to
00:40:12.640 it at all. You got a form letter back, you know, thank you for your participation. And it's, man,
00:40:19.760 he's weak. I tell you, I mean, I've been pretty critical of Premier Smith lately, and I still
00:40:24.660 will be on some of her policies, that's for sure. She's really been getting pretty brutal with how
00:40:28.520 tight she's been with Mr. Carney lately. But as long as the next person up running against her
00:40:38.700 I don't think she has much to worry about. My God, he's been terrible. I don't know. He seemed
00:40:43.840 to be, I never liked him. I mean, I've had my battles with Ninchy since he was mayor of Calgary
00:40:48.020 and prior even to a degree, but he was never foolish. But boy, on the provincial front, 0.76
00:40:54.460 he's not been politically astute. He's just been terrible. Back to, I guess, the $100 rebates,
00:41:00.240 rucking around saying, you know, just a straw poll who applied for the Danny Bucks $100 check.
00:41:05.200 I'll put my hand up, actually. I'll say I was one of them, because I'm just not going to throw
00:41:11.960 money away. CMLA Gates saying, Alaska citizens receive $1,226,025. Why is it bad to receive
00:41:18.880 $100? We should produce more. We get a wealth fund payout. Well, because Alaska was actually
00:41:23.380 set up as a separate fund that's paying out, similar to Norway, and it's paying the dividends
00:41:29.720 to the citizens. The $100 is just coming out of general revenue. This isn't out of savings.
00:41:35.120 or anything like that.
00:41:36.020 This is just, hey, I want to try and do a little better in the polls.
00:41:39.140 I've been slipping, so let's give everybody $100.
00:41:41.280 Big, big difference between an ongoing dividend program for the local citizens
00:41:45.260 based on resource revenue that's been saved, saved through the Heritage Fund,
00:41:48.840 which we have been growing a bit, but not as well as we should,
00:41:53.280 but much different than Alaska.
00:41:54.680 So we can't really compare that.
00:41:56.440 And then you're saying, why is it bad to receive $100?
00:41:58.380 Well, it's not bad exactly, but as others are pointing out,
00:42:01.760 Bruce Henderson is saying $100 check jobs for bureaucrats.
00:42:04.460 the process to get this $100. I don't know what it costs. Government's terrible. I mean,
00:42:09.300 it gets back to my earlier thing, whether it's food production or anything, they are not efficient
00:42:12.420 with anything. And the amount of administration and messing around and what you've got to do to
00:42:17.380 go online to get that $100, because I'm not going to martyr myself. As I said, contrary to what some
00:42:22.140 people might think, we're not getting rich in independent media. Okay, but I'm getting rich.
00:42:27.560 I need a hundred bucks. I'm not going to say no to it on a point of principle. I'd just rather
00:42:30.860 she didn't send it out in the first place. We had to register online with that Alberta.ca account
00:42:37.700 and go through this process and tie it in with your filings and everything. Holy cow, what a mess.
00:42:44.240 And a lot of other people have been saying, oh, that they got it and they've given it out to,
00:42:48.240 well, some leftists have said I've donated it to the head and she's NDP. Or some people said I've
00:42:53.200 donated it to independence groups and third-party advertisers and things like that. Because it is,
00:42:59.220 I mean, some people are, some people are hurting. Fair enough. And they need to say that a hundred
00:43:03.620 dollars, you know, helps even if it's not a heck of a lot, it still helps. Uh, but overall, how
00:43:10.040 much difference does it make? Not a heck of a lot. How much difference would fixing the bloody
00:43:14.360 government up be, you know, cut that bureaucracy by 40% that could change things that could bring
00:43:23.180 that cost of living down, that could make us more efficient in general, but the government doesn't
00:43:29.380 have the courage for that. So let's just, uh, uh, you know, toss out a hundred dollars. As I said,
00:43:35.500 it's just like Trudeau's carbon tax rebates. That's the thing. It was part of my monologue
00:43:40.540 that was interesting though, with that big study was people did see through it and they said, well,
00:43:48.080 you know, I'll take the carbon tax rebate, but I still hate the carbon tax. And nobody complained
00:43:52.680 when the rebate ended when Kearney got rid of the carbon tax. You know, they didn't say,
00:43:58.240 oh my Lord, I can't live without the rebates anymore. So they did realize that it was the
00:44:02.700 tax that was the problem and the rebate wasn't the solution. Get rid of the tax. Make the
00:44:08.180 government smaller. Paradox is saying, I don't know about Smith, all the flack she took for the 0.99
00:44:13.260 pushback and trans stuff. Then she's fell down the well with Kearney and oil and gas. I'm stump 0.89
00:44:17.000 suspicious. I know, and that's what I mean. You know, there's good and bad when it comes to
00:44:21.660 premier smith uh it it's you know she does some things great and she's doing some things terrible
00:44:28.000 i guess that's the case with all politicians eventually none of them are perfect that we
00:44:32.060 certainly know that here but uh it's been frustrating lately she is fortunate that
00:44:37.020 ninchi is as weak as he is that's that's most of what i'm saying uh mark jordan just saying
00:44:42.640 100 per citizen and 190 000 per flight in expenses yeah and that's referencing the food
00:44:47.960 just the food alone that the prime minister was wasting on flights unimaginable so when you're
00:44:54.680 squeezing pennies to pay the grocery bills that's what our political leadership is doing to us
00:45:00.040 unacceptable all right well that's what i got today guys thank you very much for tuning in
00:45:03.960 tune into the pipeline tonight subscribe share like do all that important stuff
00:45:08.520 to keep our channels getting out there and uh take out a subscription with the western standard
00:45:13.560 if you can. I appreciate your time today and I'll have a whole new raft of issues with another guest
00:45:18.740 to cover all this again with next week. So thanks again and talk to you later.
00:45:43.560 We'll be right back.